If Iraq IS like Vietnam, what were the real lessons of Vietnam?
Errant_Eye
analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam? Not the left's
mythologized view, the real lessons.
Lesson 1 The US won the war militarily
The blind hide-bound Pentagon only marginally capable of learning the
lessons from the French and years of its own experience in Vietnam was
killing VC in the south faster than they could be recruited. This
forced Ho Chi Minh and Giap to launch the Tet offensive before the
souther VC forces were totally destroyed. The Tet offensive may be
erily equated to Hitler's Battle of the Bulge - a last gasp offensive
that ended in disaster.
Lesson 2 - Military victory does not equal total victory.
Unlike Hitler's last offensive, Ho Chi Minh's had the effect of
dividing his enemies. The liberal left in the US, with the avid
assistance of the mass media, used the surprise offensive to convince
the American public at large that military victory could not be
achieved.
(Adjunct lesson is that the military must not paint too rosy a
scenario or it will lose all credibility)
Lesson 3 - The US won the war militarily a SECOND TIME
The 1972 Easter Offensive was launched by the NVA using conventional
forces - Infantry, Armor and Artillery against the ARVN forces backed
up by a US military force 1/6th its 1968 size. Why did they use NVA
main force units? Because the VC guerrilla insurgents were decimated.
These NVA forces were anihilated and after very hard fighting, forced
to completely withdraw - having gained control of virtually no
Republic Of South Vietnam ground.
http://www.freevn.org/nlvnch/easter72/eastr721.html
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/owens/99/vietnamwar.html
http://www.censa.net/publications/Vietnam.html
Lesson 4 - South Vietnam did not fall until the US completely withdrew
After having been decisively defeated twice, the North Vietnamese
waited until US forces had been virtually completly been withdrawn.
Saigon did not fall due to corruption, it did not fall to a rag-tag
band of black pajama wearing peasants toting AK-47s. Saigon fell to a
conventional army with Infantry, Armor and Artillery.
Lesson 5 - US retreat means complete slaughter.
The US withdrawl resulted in the slaughter of millions. Some 1.5
million Cambodians, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were
purged, tens of thousands of Laotions were slaughtered as well.
Slaughtered, executed, butchered by the people the US had been trying
to stop. The left says we must "learn the lessons of vietnam", what
lesson did David Kucinich learn when he says we must pull out of Iraq
immediately "If it was wrong to go, it is wrong to stay." What a
"compassionate" guy.
What should we learn from Vietnam?
The US must be resolute and steadfast in its support of the
development of democracy in Iraq. Wavering convinces the Iraqi people
that Saddam can come back and prevents them from committing to help
rebuild their own country.
abracadabra
"Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
> I do not buy the argument that Iraq is like Vietnam, assuming the
> analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam?
Iraq is only like Vietnam in that enough of the populatin is against us
being there that we're going to be losing soldiers until we bug out.
The fact is that we are not wanted there, and any solutions we impose will
evaporate soon after we pull out.
The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out Bush,
all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
against a foreign invasion. And if the USA was somehow occupied, we'd murder
the occupying forces where we could get to them.
The fact is people don't like other people taking over their lands and
running their countries.
That's the lesson you and the neo-cons need to learn.
ma...@merde.com
wrote:
>The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out Bush,
>all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
>against a foreign invasion
That is debatable. The Demmies would probably French kiss their
Communist allies in France.
Steven Litvintchouk
abracadabra wrote:
> "Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
>
>>I do not buy the argument that Iraq is like Vietnam, assuming the
>>analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam?
>
>
> Iraq is only like Vietnam in that enough of the populatin is against us
> being there that we're going to be losing soldiers until we bug out.
> The fact is that we are not wanted there,
The very few public opinion polls taken in Iraq show that the
overwhelming majority of Iraqis do appreciate our liberating them from
Saddam, and are depending on us to maintain order there.
If only 10% of the population are hard-core Saddam supporters, they have
no right to chase out the U.S. and then reimpose their will on the Iraqi
people.
10% doesn't equal "we are not wanted there". It does equal a small
bunch of malcontents who have to be dealt with.
> and any solutions we impose will
> evaporate soon after we pull out.
> The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out Bush,
> all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
> against a foreign invasion.
We WERE attacked--on 9-11.
Most Dems and most mainstream liberals did rally behind Bush and America
following that atrocity.
But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
And you were hard-pressed to find ANY liberals in academia who supported
Bush. (Remember "War Is Not The Answer", "Cycle of Violence," and all
the other pacifist claptrap we heard from them? If your memory fails
you, search the archives of www.commondreams.org for that time period.)
-- Steven Litvintchouk
abracadabra
<ma...@merde.com> wrote in message
news:b2r7svcn8klhg56t8...@4ax.com...
You can only project your own cowardice on others. The only thing you can
imagine doing if we were invaded would be to turn traitor so you could get a
payoff from the "masters". Typical conservative.
Hey - most of those "greatest generation" men who saved WORLD from the Axis
were Democrats.
You owe your life to Democrats.
abracadabra
"Steven Litvintchouk" <sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote in message
news:ggSwb.21996$Wy4...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
>
> abracadabra wrote:
>
> > "Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
> >
> >>I do not buy the argument that Iraq is like Vietnam, assuming the
> >>analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam?
> >
> >
> > being there that we're going to be losing soldiers until we bug out.
> > The fact is that we are not wanted there,
>
> The very few public opinion polls taken in Iraq show that the
> overwhelming majority of Iraqis do appreciate our liberating them from
> Saddam, and are depending on us to maintain order there.
That's debatable.
> If only 10% of the population are hard-core Saddam supporters, they have
> no right to chase out the U.S. and then reimpose their will on the Iraqi
> people.
???
It's Iraqis who are attacking us. In the "Safe City" of Mosel, an American
success story, civilians beat our wounded soldiers to death with
cinderblocks and reports state that their throats were cut.
Whatever right we have to imposer our will because we beat them doesn't seem
to be recognized by the locals. How long can we rule an unwilling people
without becoming tyrants ourselves?
> 10% doesn't equal "we are not wanted there". It does equal a small
> bunch of malcontents who have to be dealt with.
Uhm, and by shooting up neighborhoods, blowing up homes of suspects
families, that's supposed to decrease or increase the number of
"malcontents".
And if it were in the USA we'd call the "malcontents" "patriots".
> > and any solutions we impose will
> > evaporate soon after we pull out.
> > The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out
Bush,
> > all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
> > against a foreign invasion.
>
> We WERE attacked--on 9-11.
IRAQ DIDN'T ATTACK THE USA ON 9/11
> Most Dems and most mainstream liberals did rally behind Bush and America
> following that atrocity.
>
> But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
So what? It turns out she was right. Bush has only used the "war on terror"
to help himself politically. They aren't serious about getting anything
accomplished.
> And you were hard-pressed to find ANY liberals in academia who supported
> Bush. (Remember "War Is Not The Answer", "Cycle of Violence," and all
> the other pacifist claptrap we heard from them? If your memory fails
> you, search the archives of www.commondreams.org for that time period.)
I don't see why anybody would have supported bush in his ill-advised
invasion that turns out was based on lies. If all the academia opposed Bush,
well, they are better educated and they were right!
Docky Wocky
"But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee..."
_________________________________
That's Comrade Congressperson Lee to you.
Familiarity certainly has bred contempt amongst the moron class.
c_R_a_Z_e_E s_A_c_K h_E_a_D
> What should we learn from Vietnam?
We should learn to dissiminate blatant partisanship from actual "dissent"
for starters. The right should also have learned not to try to appease the
left. People died in droves after the SE asian withdrawal.
Arne Langsetmo
>
> abracadabra wrote:
>
>> "Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
>>
>>> I do not buy the argument that Iraq is like Vietnam, assuming the
>>> analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam?
>>
>> Iraq is only like Vietnam in that enough of the populatin is against us
>> being there that we're going to be losing soldiers until we bug out.
>> The fact is that we are not wanted there,
>
> The very few public opinion polls taken in Iraq show that the
> overwhelming majority of Iraqis do appreciate our liberating them from
> Saddam, and are depending on us to maintain order there.
Ummm, I think this is RW "fable". You have a cite for this, Steve?
> If only 10% of the population are hard-core Saddam supporters, they have
> no right to chase out the U.S. and then reimpose their will on the Iraqi
> people.
>
> 10% doesn't equal "we are not wanted there". It does equal a small
> bunch of malcontents who have to be dealt with.
Well, they do have to be dealt with as long as they're "dealing"
with out troops over there.
>> and any solutions we impose will
>> evaporate soon after we pull out.
>> The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out
>> Bush,
>> all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
>> against a foreign invasion.
>
> We WERE attacked--on 9-11.
Ummm, but not by Saddam.
> Most Dems and most mainstream liberals did rally behind Bush and America
> following that atrocity.
Only to see Dubya say "Osama who" and go fight an unnecessary war
against Saddam. And then kick the Dems in the teeth and basically
call them traitors if they made so much as one discouraging word.
Or actually, kick them in the teeth if they were Dems, regardless.
That's Rove for ya. . . .
> But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Prescient woman. I think she knew only too well what kind of an
asshole Dubya is.
> And you were hard-pressed to find ANY liberals in academia who supported
> Bush. . . .
For what? Going after terrorists? Or fighting am unnecessary war
against Iraq?
> . . . (Remember "War Is Not The Answer", "Cycle of Violence," and all
> the other pacifist claptrap we heard from them? . . .
Having fun fighting your "straw men", Steve?
> . . . If your memory fails
> you, search the archives of www.commondreams.org for that time period.)
No, Steve. Why don't _you_ present evidence of your claims? I'd
note that your accusations here are pretty much the same as those
of "Whistle-Ass" and the Republicans in the recent campaign ad
they put out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/25/opinion/25KRUG.html
>
> -- Steven Litvintchouk
>
>
--
Cheers,
-- Arne Langsetmo
ma...@merde.com
wrote:
>You can only project your own cowardice on others. The only thing you can
>imagine doing if we were invaded would be to turn traitor so you could get a
>payoff from the "masters". Typical conservative.
>Hey - most of those "greatest generation" men who saved WORLD from the Axis
>were Democrats.
>You owe your life to Democrats.
The Democrats back then were a different breed. They weren't a Liberal
party of special interests, anti-religion, anti-family, anti-right to
bear arms.
When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor (It's a joke from Animal House I
know it was the Japanese) there were no Democrats calling WW2 an
unjust war. There were no cries of regime change begins at home. No
cowardly wimpering of innocents being killed.
The Democrats then were people proud of America and not ashamed of it.
They loved the US and did not hate it.
BTW if WW 2 occurred now instead of then the Liberals would be calling
the war unjust. After all the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and not
Germany. To them going to war against Germany would be an illegal
occupation.
Mark Metzler
> overwhelming majority of Iraqis do appreciate our liberating them from
> Saddam, and are depending on us to maintain order there.
The nice thing about conservative propaganda....like any propaganda....is
that it is so easy to refute, if you take the time to examine the facts:
The Bush Administration's Misuse of Iraqi Opinion
*********************
In fact, Zogby International (ZI) in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) did publish their interpretation of the
findings. But the AEI's "spin" and the Vice-President's use of their "spin"
created a faulty impression of the poll's results and, therefore, of the
attitudes of the Iraqi people.
For example, while Cheney noted that when asked what kind of government they
would like, Iraqis chose "the U.S. . . .hands down," in fact, the results of
the poll are actually quite different. Twenty-three percent of Iraqis say
that they would like to model their new government after the U.S.; 17.5%
would like their model to be Saudi Arabia; 12% say Syria, 7% say Egypt and
37% say "none of the above." That's hardly "winning hands down."
When given the choice as to whether they "would like to see the American and
British forces leave Iraq in six months, one year, or two years," 31.5% of
Iraqis say these forces should leave in six months; 34% say a year, and only
25% say two or more years. So while technically Cheney might say that "over
60% (actually it's 59%) . . . want the U.S. to stay at least another year,"
an equally correct observation would be that 65.5% want the U.S. and Britain
to leave in one year or less.
Other numbers found in the poll go further to dampen the Vice-President's
and the AEI's rosy interpretations. For example, when asked if "democracy
can work well in Iraq," 51% said "no; it is a Western way of doing things
and will not work here."
And attitudes toward the U.S. were not positive. When asked whether over the
next five years, they felt that the "U.S. would help or hurt Iraq," 50% said
that the U.S. would hurt Iraq, while only 35.5% felt the U.S. would help the
country. On the other hand, 61% of Iraqis felt that Saudi Arabia would help
Iraq in the next five years, as opposed to only 7.5%, who felt Saudi Arabia
would hurt their country. 50.5% felt that the United Nations would help
Iraq, while 18.5% felt it would hurt. Iran's rating was very close to the
U.S.'s, with 53.5% of Iraqis saying Iran would hurt them in the next five
years, while only 21.5% felt that Iran might help them.
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/405646.php
*******************************************************
An Archive of Nobel-Prize-Winning Pacifists and Peace Activists
http://www.peaceuniversalist.com/nobel/prize.htm
Mark Metzler
Unfortunately, there are many parallels with the Viet Nam War.
1 An Unwinable War. Those who think the US could have won in Viet Nam, are
simply wrong. The reason is,that it was a guerrilla war, and the North
Vietnamese soldiers blended in with the population. The only way to win
such a war would have been to annihilate the entire population with nuclear
weopons. Unfortunately, that would have turned the entire world against US
( not to mention all the Americans who grew up thinking this is a Christian
country), and we would have "reaped what we sowed" with radiation floating
our way.. The US tried every means to fight this guerilla war, including
flying over, and dumping massive amounts of buring molten napalm on villages
of completely innocent civilians, in hopes to intimidate them from
supporting the Viet Cong. All to no avail. This was *not* a good way to
win friends and influence people!
The Iraq situation is the same. US troops have been shooting large numbers
of innocent Iraqi civilians. But this has just served to turn the
population against us.
2. Lying by our Leaders. One of the most painful similarities to the Viet
Nam conflict, has been the dishonesty of official pronouncements. They are
even using pretty much the same phrases: " We are turning the corner", "we
see the light at the end of the tunnel".. We heard these same
pronouncements for 7 long bloody years in Viet Nam, even though there was no
empirical basis to support these claims.
Today we hear George W. saying every week "We are making Progress". How
absurd. Now that the attacks against US soldiers have risen from 3 / day to
about 30 / day....what basis do we have for saying we are making progress?
NONE WHATSOEVER!!!!
3. Vested Interests. In looking back at the history of Viet Nam, we should
never forget to mention, that the biggest reason it lasted so long, in
spite of the absolute futility of the war, was that vested interests in the
military-industrial complex were making extraordinary amounts of money off
of the continuation of the war. If the war were to end, they would be out
of business..
Once, again, in Iraq, we see the power of these vested interests. (former
Secretary of Defense) Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld, and Collin Pwell....the White House is completely under the
control of representatives of the military-industrial complex. Lets never
forget, that when $87 billion is spent in Iraq, most of that money goes into
the pockets of wealthy industrialists. If the war were to end in a year,
they would have to find some other line of work. As long as they have
political power, they are going to pump a certain amount of that money back
into the political process, and what better way to keep themselves in the
money, than to foment the hatred of radical muslims?
--
****************************************************************************
Johnny Asia
<mmet...@sasquatch.com> wrote:
>> What should we learn from Vietnam?
>
>Unfortunately, there are many parallels with the Viet Nam War. >>
Don't forget the oil:
Herbert Hoover, later to become President of the United States did a
study that showed that one of the world's largest oil fields ran along
the coast of the South China Sea right off French Indo-China, now
known as Vietnam.
- Denny, Ludwell, We Fight of Oil, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1928.
US analyst Ludwell Denny in his book "We Fight for Oil" noted the
domestic oil shortage and says international diplomacy had failed to
secure any reliable foreign sources of oil for the United States. Fear
of oil shortages would become the most important factor in
international relations, Denny said.
Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast
Asia (CCOP)
http://www.ccop.or.th/epf/vietnam/vietnam_terms.html
PETROLEUM AGREEMENTS
"The first type of oil and gas agreement applied in Vietnam was the
concession system, in which an oil company is permitted by the host
country to explore and produce petroleum on a certain area on the
condition that it must pay to the State of this country compulsory
taxes with a fixed rate. At the early stage of oil exploration in
offshore southern Vietnam, the former Saigon Administration allowed
oil companies including Pecten, Mobil, Esso and Marathon to conduct
petroleum activities through concession agreements.
After the establishment of PetroVietnam in 1975, in recognition of the
advantage of the production-sharing system, it has been chosen as a
basic frame for petroleum contracts."
http://www.petrovietnam.com.vn/internet/Promotion.nsf/EXP2002/PROEXPII_2.htm
PETROVIETNAM, EXPLORATION OPPORTUNITIES FOR OIL AND NATURAL GAS IN
VIET NAM
I.2 Exploration History
The exploration activities for petroleum started in the early 1960s in
the Song Hong Delta, northern Vietnam, with assistance of the former
Soviet Union. By the late 1970’s, almost 40 wells had been drilled in
the region, however, only one small gas field was commercially
developed. At the same period, exploration went on in the southern
continental shelf through concession agreements signed with
international oil companies including Mobil, Esso, Pecten, Marathon,
and Texas Union.
+
"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism
by those who have not got it." - G. B. Shaw
The First Church of Common Sense
Want to know what's REALLY going on in Iraq?
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/wakeup.html
Cowboys and Idiots: The Reagan Administration
Ronnies' "Brave freedom fighters" are now Bushs'
"evildoers" who "hate our freedoms".
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/reagan.html
The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roller Empire
The God-Awful Truth about Christian Zionism
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/armageddon.html
Errant_Eye
> > What should we learn from Vietnam?
>
> Unfortunately, there are many parallels with the Viet Nam War.
>
> 1 An Unwinable War.
face of history. The British defeated guerilla opponents in asia and
the US defeated the Vietnamese guerilla opponent as well. The Viet
Cong, the guerilla arm of the communists, were virtually anihilated
after Tet. After Tet the communists were forced to rely upon
conventional NVA forces. Saigon fell to a conventional invasion by
NVA Infantry divisions backed by armor and artillery. Saigon did not
fall to peasants in black pajamas carrying only RPGs and AK-47s.
> Those who think the US could have won in Viet Nam, are
> simply wrong. The reason is,that it was a guerrilla war, and the North
> Vietnamese soldiers blended in with the population. The only way to win
> such a war would have been to annihilate the entire population with nuclear
> weopons.
No, you only have to kill enough of the guerilla's to disuade the rest
from fighting. You are assuming an anonymity of commitment throughout
the population. As a whole the peasant population of Souther Vietnam
didnt really give a damn, they were not thrilled with the Catholic
elite ruling them but towards the end you did not see the peasant
population fleeing the territories occupied by the ARVNs, you saw them
flee the areas that the NVA army was approaching.
IF the vast majority of the population is in support of, or
sympathetic to, the guerilla forces you are correct. That kind of
Guerilla war can never truly be won without virtual genocide (ie
Chechnya).
> Unfortunately, that would have turned the entire world against US
> ( not to mention all the Americans who grew up thinking this is a Christian
> country), and we would have "reaped what we sowed" with radiation floating
> our way.. The US tried every means to fight this guerilla war, including
> flying over, and dumping massive amounts of buring molten napalm on villages
> of completely innocent civilians, in hopes to intimidate them from
> supporting the Viet Cong. All to no avail. This was *not* a good way to
> win friends and influence people!
The NVA and VC engaged in the most brutal intimidation in order to
keep the peasants from cooperating with ARVN and US forces. If the
population were all on the side of the communists, why was this
necessary?
>
> The Iraq situation is the same. US troops have been shooting large numbers
> of innocent Iraqi civilians. But this has just served to turn the
> population against us.
Agreed, civilians are being killed by coalition forces. Note too that
Iraqi civilians are being killed by the extremists and Iraqi police
and administrators. They are also targeting non-military humanitarian
organizations as well. If the Iraqi population is as supportive of
the extremists as you imply, why do they find it necessary to target
Iraiqis and civilians?
The reason is because they DO NOT have significant support so are
using the tactics of terrorists everywhere. Create chaos and cower
the massess into submission to the rule of a small elite.
>
> 2. Lying by our Leaders. One of the most painful similarities to the Viet
> Nam conflict, has been the dishonesty of official pronouncements. They are
> even using pretty much the same phrases: " We are turning the corner", "we
> see the light at the end of the tunnel".. We heard these same
> pronouncements for 7 long bloody years in Viet Nam, even though there was no
> empirical basis to support these claims.
Agreed. Too much deceit undercuts support.
>
> Today we hear George W. saying every week "We are making Progress". How
> absurd. Now that the attacks against US soldiers have risen from 3 / day to
> about 30 / day....what basis do we have for saying we are making progress?
> NONE WHATSOEVER!!!!
You must get your news solely from the US mass media. Try reading
some of the blogs from Iraqi citizens. Schools and hospitals now
provide more and better service than under Saddam, more electricity is
getting to the people than under Saddam. All polls show that the
majority of Iraqis want the US out as soon as possible; the majoirty
also want the US to stay long enough to stabilize the situation so
they can prevent the Baathists and Islamo-fascists from taking over.
>
> 3. Vested Interests. In looking back at the history of Viet Nam, we should
> never forget to mention, that the biggest reason it lasted so long, in
> spite of the absolute futility of the war, was that vested interests in the
> military-industrial complex were making extraordinary amounts of money off
> of the continuation of the war. If the war were to end, they would be out
> of business..
No. The reason it lasted so long was because the communists knew that
while being defeated militarily they were winning in the streets of
America. The same is true here. Many Iraqis are afraid to too
publicly support the coalition for fear the coalition will pull out
and leave them to be killed by the extremists. Every "troops home
now" street demonstration feeds these fears, restricts the Iraqis from
fighting the extremists and extends the conflict.
>
> Once, again, in Iraq, we see the power of these vested interests. (former
> Secretary of Defense) Cheney,
> Donald Rumsfeld, and Collin Pwell....the White House is completely under the
> control of representatives of the military-industrial complex. Lets never
> forget, that when $87 billion is spent in Iraq, most of that money goes into
> the pockets of wealthy industrialists. If the war were to end in a year,
> they would have to find some other line of work. As long as they have
> political power, they are going to pump a certain amount of that money back
> into the political process, and what better way to keep themselves in the
> money, than to foment the hatred of radical muslims?
You dont understand the concept of "profit" do you? When $87 billion
is spent on reconstructing Iraq most of the money goes to
reconstructing Iraq only a small portion ends up as profit for the
commercial companies - and profit is why commercial companies exist.
Docky Wocky
"What should we learn from Vietnam?..."
___________________________
Keep the politicians in DC and, once unchained, let the military run the
wars. No interference until enemy survivors petition (beg) for end of
hostilities through neutral third party(s)
Steven Litvintchouk
abracadabra wrote:
> "Steven Litvintchouk" <sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote in message
> news:ggSwb.21996$Wy4...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
>>
>>abracadabra wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
>>>
>>>
>>>>I do not buy the argument that Iraq is like Vietnam, assuming the
>>>>analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam?
>>>
>>>
>>>Iraq is only like Vietnam in that enough of the population is against us
>>>being there that we're going to be losing soldiers until we bug out.
>>>The fact is that we are not wanted there,
>>
>>The very few public opinion polls taken in Iraq show that the
>>overwhelming majority of Iraqis do appreciate our liberating them from
>>Saddam, and are depending on us to maintain order there.
>
>
> That's debatable.
OK, go ahead. Debate it.
>
>
>>If only 10% of the population are hard-core Saddam supporters, they have
>>no right to chase out the U.S. and then reimpose their will on the Iraqi
>>people.
>
>
> ???
> It's Iraqis who are attacking us.
It's a small minority of Iraqis who are attacking us. They are no more
representative of all the Iraqi people than the 19 terrorists of 9-11
were representative of all Muslims.
> In the "Safe City" of Mosel, an American
> success story, civilians beat our wounded soldiers to death with
> cinderblocks and reports state that their throats were cut.
> Whatever right we have to imposer our will because we beat them doesn't seem
> to be recognized by the locals.
Now you're rationalizing that alleged atrocity?
What rationalizations did you invent for 9-11?
>>10% doesn't equal "we are not wanted there". It does equal a small
>>bunch of malcontents who have to be dealt with.
>
>
> Uhm, and by shooting up neighborhoods, blowing up homes of suspects
> families, that's supposed to decrease or increase the number of
> "malcontents".
> And if it were in the USA we'd call the "malcontents" "patriots".
No we wouldn't. American patriots don't resort to suicide-bombing of
civilians and deliberately targeting the International Red Cross.
In the whole world, there are only two types of savages who suicide-bomb
civilians: Tamil Tigers and Arab Muslim terrorists.
Americans are much more civilized than to stoop to such tactics.
>
>
>>>and any solutions we impose will
>>>evaporate soon after we pull out.
>>>The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out
>
> Bush,
>
>>>all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
>>>against a foreign invasion.
>>
>>We WERE attacked--on 9-11.
>
>
> IRAQ DIDN'T ATTACK THE USA ON 9/11
>
>
>
>>Most Dems and most mainstream liberals did rally behind Bush and America
>>following that atrocity.
>>
>>But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
>
>
> So what? It turns out she was right.
Was that your position too? That in response to 9-11, the U.S. should
just turn the other cheek and go on as if nothing had happened?
>
>>And you were hard-pressed to find ANY liberals in academia who supported
>> Bush. (Remember "War Is Not The Answer", "Cycle of Violence," and all
>>the other pacifist claptrap we heard from them? If your memory fails
>>you, search the archives of www.commondreams.org for that time period.)
>
>
> I don't see why anybody would have supported bush in his ill-advised
> invasion that turns out was based on lies. If all the academia opposed Bush,
> well, they are better educated and they were right!
You totally missed my point. Barbara Lee and the left-wing academics
were against taking ANY military action in response to 9-11--no matter
what sort of action or where.
They were and still are against ANY U.S. military action anywhere for
any purpose. They opposed Clinton's bombing of Serbia too.
For these "selective pacifists," the war against Saddam is just a
special case of a general principle. They will NEVER support a U.S. war
anywhere.
-- Steven Litvintchouk
SemiScholar
wrote:
I'll agree with that. But it is also, then, CRITICAL to make sure we
only fight the wars that we need to fight. Iraq is not one of those.
Vietnam was not one of those. Afghanistan and the War on Terror IS a
war we need to fight. But Bush has forgotten those and has instead
chosen to get us bogged down in Iraq.
SemiScholar
wrote:
>"Mark Metzler" <mmet...@sasquatch.com> wrote in message news:<vs8cgkp...@corp.supernews.com>...
>> > What should we learn from Vietnam?
>>
>> Unfortunately, there are many parallels with the Viet Nam War.
>>
>> 1 An Unwinable War.
>No. This is certainly dogma for the paleo-liberals but it flies in the
>face of history. The British defeated guerilla opponents in asia and
>the US defeated the Vietnamese guerilla opponent as well. The Viet
>Cong, the guerilla arm of the communists, were virtually anihilated
>after Tet. After Tet the communists were forced to rely upon
>conventional NVA forces. Saigon fell to a conventional invasion by
>NVA Infantry divisions backed by armor and artillery. Saigon did not
>fall to peasants in black pajamas carrying only RPGs and AK-47s.
Whoops! Looks like ErrantEye didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam.
SemiScholar
wrote:
>On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 02:19:43 GMT, "abracadabra" <ab...@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>You can only project your own cowardice on others. The only thing you can
>>imagine doing if we were invaded would be to turn traitor so you could get a
>>payoff from the "masters". Typical conservative.
>>Hey - most of those "greatest generation" men who saved WORLD from the Axis
>>were Democrats.
>>You owe your life to Democrats.
>
>The Democrats back then were a different breed. They weren't a Liberal
>party of special interests, anti-religion, anti-family, anti-right to
>bear arms.
>
>When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor (It's a joke from Animal House I
>know it was the Japanese) there were no Democrats calling WW2 an
>unjust war. There were no cries of regime change begins at home. No
>cowardly wimpering of innocents being killed.
Yes, indeed there were. They were quieted after Pearl Harbor, but up
until that point, the America Firsters were very vocal, and the US in
general was opposed to becoming involved in the war. It wasn't so
much "Democrats" - I think the America Firsters were more Republican,
but opposition to US involvement was widespread.
>
>The Democrats then were people proud of America and not ashamed of it.
>They loved the US and did not hate it.
Same as now.
>
>BTW if WW 2 occurred now instead of then the Liberals would be calling
>the war unjust. After all the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and not
>Germany. To them going to war against Germany would be an illegal
>occupation.
Germany declared war on the US and attacked our shipping.
abracadabra
<ma...@merde.com> wrote in message
news:b088sv82ds5a7ontg...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 02:19:43 GMT, "abracadabra" <ab...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >You can only project your own cowardice on others. The only thing you can
> >imagine doing if we were invaded would be to turn traitor so you could
get a
> >payoff from the "masters". Typical conservative.
> >Hey - most of those "greatest generation" men who saved WORLD from the
Axis
> >were Democrats.
> >You owe your life to Democrats.
>
> The Democrats back then were a different breed. They weren't a Liberal
> party of special interests, anti-religion, anti-family, anti-right to
> bear arms.
Uhm the Republican party is the party of
special-interests-over-interests-of-real-Americans.
But the rest of your statement is idiotic.
> When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor (It's a joke from Animal House I
> know it was the Japanese) there were no Democrats calling WW2 an
> unjust war.
No kidding.
>There were no cries of regime change begins at home. No
> cowardly wimpering of innocents being killed.
Well, silly, Iraq didn't bomb Pearl Harbor or the WTC, so your comparisan is
pretty silly.
Add to that Saddam was not 1/10 the threat Hitler was.
> The Democrats then were people proud of America and not ashamed of it.
> They loved the US and did not hate it.
Just like Democrats today.
> BTW if WW 2 occurred now instead of then the Liberals would be calling
> the war unjust
NOPE
You're a liar.
abracadabra
"Docky Wocky" <mrc...@lst.net> wrote in message
news:AuUwb.5413$f32....@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> abrcwhatchamacallit sez:
>
> "But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee..."
You're quoting the poster before me, not me, nitwit.
However, Lee turned out to be right.
abracadabra
"Steven Litvintchouk" <sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote in message
> >>>"Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I do not buy the argument that Iraq is like Vietnam, assuming the
> >>>>analogy is accurate what were the lessons of Vietnam?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Iraq is only like Vietnam in that enough of the population is against
us
> >>>being there that we're going to be losing soldiers until we bug out.
> >>>The fact is that we are not wanted there,
> >>
> >>The very few public opinion polls taken in Iraq show that the
> >>overwhelming majority of Iraqis do appreciate our liberating them from
> >>Saddam, and are depending on us to maintain order there.
> >
> >
> > That's debatable.
>
> OK, go ahead. Debate it.
I have not read every story about the "Iraqi Polls" but I did see Zogby on
TV saying polls he conducted in Iraq were wildly misrepresented by the
administration, and that the Iraqis did not "overwealmingly want the USA
there"
> >>If only 10% of the population are hard-core Saddam supporters, they have
> >>no right to chase out the U.S. and then reimpose their will on the Iraqi
> >>people.
> >
> > It's Iraqis who are attacking us.
>
> It's a small minority of Iraqis who are attacking us. They are no more
> representative of all the Iraqi people than the 19 terrorists of 9-11
> were representative of all Muslims.
That's true. But it isn't "non-Iraqis" who are attacking us 12+ times daily,
or killing soldiers on a nearly daily basis.
> > In the "Safe City" of Mosel, an American
> > success story, civilians beat our wounded soldiers to death with
> > cinderblocks and reports state that their throats were cut.
> > Whatever right we have to imposer our will because we beat them doesn't
seem
> > to be recognized by the locals.
>
> Now you're rationalizing that alleged atrocity?
Nope - but if we were an occupied country, to murder a member of the
occupying force would be a patriotic act. I certainly wouldn't be passive if
the USA was occupied. I'd be out quietly murdering enemy soldiers.
> What rationalizations did you invent for 9-11?
Never have - unlike the political right that said it was OK because the USA
deserved it. Remember - it was Reagan and Bush's spiritual allies Jerry
Falwell and Pat Robertson who claimed that God let 9/11 happen because we
deserved it.
> >>10% doesn't equal "we are not wanted there". It does equal a small
> >>bunch of malcontents who have to be dealt with.
> >
> >
> > Uhm, and by shooting up neighborhoods, blowing up homes of suspects
> > families, that's supposed to decrease or increase the number of
> > "malcontents".
> > And if it were in the USA we'd call the "malcontents" "patriots".
>
> No we wouldn't. American patriots don't resort to suicide-bombing of
> civilians and deliberately targeting the International Red Cross.
If we had no better weapons besided our bodies and suicide bombs, that's
what we'd use. And of course we have targeted civilians in the past. Look at
the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression, depending on where you're
from) or WW2.
> In the whole world, there are only two types of savages who suicide-bomb
> civilians: Tamil Tigers and Arab Muslim terrorists.
Again, if you have no other weapon, you use what you have to. "All's fair in
love and war"
> Americans are much more civilized than to stoop to such tactics.
Firing missiles that might or might not hit military targets or using drone
aircraft to murder from afar is OK, but suicide bombs aren't? I fail to see
how one is morally superior to another. Maybe you ought to spell it out for
me. The way I see it, when you are fighting a war, you do what you have to.
Hence I have no moral qualms about what we did to Hiroshima and
Nagasaki(sp?).
> >>Most Dems and most mainstream liberals did rally behind Bush and America
> >>following that atrocity.
> >>
> >>But at least one Dem didn't--Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
> >
> >
> > So what? It turns out she was right.
>
> Was that your position too? That in response to 9-11, the U.S. should
> just turn the other cheek and go on as if nothing had happened?
Hey - I agree with fighting a war against Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda does not =
Iraq. We ought to have finished off Al Qaeda. Now Afganistan is close to
falling back into the hands of the Taliban.
> >>And you were hard-pressed to find ANY liberals in academia who supported
> >> Bush. (Remember "War Is Not The Answer", "Cycle of Violence," and all
> >>the other pacifist claptrap we heard from them? If your memory fails
> >>you, search the archives of www.commondreams.org for that time period.)
> >
> >
> > I don't see why anybody would have supported bush in his ill-advised
> > invasion that turns out was based on lies. If all the academia opposed
Bush,
> > well, they are better educated and they were right!
>
> You totally missed my point. Barbara Lee and the left-wing academics
> were against taking ANY military action in response to 9-11--no matter
> what sort of action or where.
Well, I certainly don't agree with that. Of course as it turns out, the
current administration cannot be trusted to do anything militarily, so
again, they may have been right, if for the wrong reasons.
> They were and still are against ANY U.S. military action anywhere for
> any purpose. They opposed Clinton's bombing of Serbia too.
give them credit for intellectual consistancy.
Bryan
Docky Wocky wrote:
Not to have the French guide our foreign policy anymore.
zepp
They were dying in droves BEFORE the SE Asian withdrawal, you dummy.
>
-
"...too many whites are getting away with drug use."
-- Rush Limbaugh, on his short lived TV show
October 5, 1995
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
Johnny Asia
Thursday 27 November 2003
AFP - A general of Saddam Hussein's dissolved armed forces has died
under interrogation by US occupation forces in Iraq.
A US military statement on Thursday said the death "appeared" to be
from natural causes.
Major-General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a former air defence commander,
died on Wednesday morning, said the statement issued from the western
town of al-Qaim in the troubled Syrian border region.
"Mowhoush said he didn't feel well and subsequently lost
consciousness. The soldier questioning him found no pulse, then
conducted cardiac and pulmonary resuscitation and called for medical
authorities," the statement said.
The general was a member of the Mahalowi tribe from the middle
Euphrates valley north and west of the Iraqi capital, a bastion of
support for Saddam Hussein.
The area around al-Qaim and the border town of Husaybah further west
has witnessed intense resistance against US troops.
Johnny Asia
Nov. 29, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq(AP) - There is no evidence that al-Qaida terrorists have
taken part in the long string of attacks on U.S. or Iraqi targets, but
some U.S.-trained Iraqi police appear to have coordinated some of
those assaults, the top U.S. military official in Iraq said Saturday.
U.S. military officials are concerned that some attacks on Americans
have been coordinated by a few of the numerous Iraqi civilians hired
by the U.S. military, who may glean intelligence on troop movements
and travels of high-ranking officers, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told
reporters at the Baghdad Convention Center.
"Clearly those are concerns we have. We try to do the vetting (of
Iraqi employees) as close as we can," he said. "There have been
instances when police were coordinating attacks against the
coalition."
Errant_Eye
> On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 22:02:37 -0500, "c_R_a_Z_e_E s_A_c_K h_E_a_D"
> <gonef...@thelake.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
> ><snip>
> >> What should we learn from Vietnam?
> >
> >We should learn to dissiminate blatant partisanship from actual "dissent"
> >for starters. The right should also have learned not to try to appease the
> >left. People died in droves after the SE asian withdrawal.
>
> They were dying in droves BEFORE the SE Asian withdrawal, you dummy.
was that our totalitarian enemies committed mass slaughter on a skill
so vast that it sickened everyone except the Euro-American left. What
I meant to say was that in Cambodia the communsists
executed/slaughtered/starved as much as 1/3 of their population -
anywhere from 1.2 to 2 million civilians slaughtered, not in war but
in the aftermath of the communist "victory". What I meant to say was
the communist rule in the conquered south was always underplayed
because of the slaughter in Cambodia but that in South Vietnam tens of
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of civilians did not graduate
from the communist re-education program. For the clueless such as
yourself, failure to graduate meant death. What I meant to say was
that the people of South Vietnam were so enamored of the communist
rule that tens of thousands of people risked their lives in leaky
boats trying to flee.
david....@inkblotpoetry.com
Saturday November 29, 2003 5:16 PM
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - There is no evidence that al-Qaida terrorists
have taken part in the long string of attacks on U.S. or Iraqi
targets, but some U.S.-trained Iraqi police appear to have coordinated
some of those assaults, the top U.S. military official in Iraq said
Saturday.
U.S. military officials are concerned that some attacks on Americans
have been coordinated by a few of the numerous Iraqi civilians hired
by the U.S. military, who may glean intelligence on troop movements
and travels of high-ranking officers, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told
reporters at the Baghdad Convention Center.
- click full story -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3444160,00.html
zepp
wrote:
>zepp <zeppn...@finestplanet.com> wrote in message news:<19vasv0itvueus6tg...@4ax.com>...
>> On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 22:02:37 -0500, "c_R_a_Z_e_E s_A_c_K h_E_a_D"
>> <gonef...@thelake.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Errant_Eye" <Erran...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> >news:1e73867.03112...@posting.google.com...
>> ><snip>
>> >> What should we learn from Vietnam?
>> >
>> >We should learn to dissiminate blatant partisanship from actual "dissent"
>> >for starters. The right should also have learned not to try to appease the
>> >left. People died in droves after the SE asian withdrawal.
>>
>> They were dying in droves BEFORE the SE Asian withdrawal, you dummy.
>Pardon me. What I meant to suggest, and did a poor job of conveying,
>was that our totalitarian enemies committed mass slaughter on a skill
>so vast that it sickened everyone except the Euro-American left.
No it didn't. The American aerial attacks, using napalm and agent
orange, killed two million people outright and was responsible for the
premature deaths of another million in the years since.
Now, you characterize the Hanoi regime as bloodthirsty, totalitarian,
and responsible for the deaths of possibly hundreds of thousands in
their own right. I won't argue with that (although I will note they
stopped the even worse Khmer Rouge). But I note that this VERY SAME
REGIME is now our trading buddies. Profit before honor, eh, Errent
Eye?
What
>I meant to say was that in Cambodia the communsists
>executed/slaughtered/starved as much as 1/3 of their population -
>anywhere from 1.2 to 2 million civilians slaughtered, not in war but
>in the aftermath of the communist "victory".
And the Khmer Rouge had what to do with the Hanoi government, exactly?
Aside from the fact that the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge,
that is?
>What I meant to say was
>the communist rule in the conquered south was always underplayed
>because of the slaughter in Cambodia but that in South Vietnam tens of
>thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of civilians did not graduate
>from the communist re-education program. For the clueless such as
>yourself, failure to graduate meant death. What I meant to say was
>that the people of South Vietnam were so enamored of the communist
>rule that tens of thousands of people risked their lives in leaky
>boats trying to flee.
Just as people flee totalitarian regimes all over the world.
Incidently, cheer up; the Khmer Rouge were communist, too. One of the
nice things about those Asian massacres is that relatively few of them
are caused by Christians.
Johnny Asia
Hitler could visit occupied Paris and see the sights. Bush had to
sneak in and out of US-occupied Baghdad and dared not stay more than
two or three hours, or venture outside the armed airport -- not even
guarded and accompanied by the most powerfully equipped army on earth.
http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/11/Mueller_281103.html
Friday, November 28, 2003
Hitler in Paris, Bush in Baghdad: Comparisons
by Eric Mueller
THE contrast between George Bush's two-hour secret trip to occupied
Baghdad in November 2003 and Adolf Hitler's visit to occupied Paris in
June 1940 invites some interesting comparisons.
President Bush was in Baghdad for only two and a half hours (or two,
depending on the report one reads). His presence there wasn't
announced until after he had left. He never took so much as a step
outside the US-occupied airport which is also the main US airfield in
occupied Iraq.
I don't imagine that Hitler's visit to France was widely publicised in
advance among the French people either, but he does seem to have
enjoyed something of a tour of the French capital.
I am not in any way raising this issue in order to contrast the
personal courage of Hitler and Bush, which is a complex and minor
issue, but to contrast the two occupations.
During and since World War II we who live in the Allied countries have
been given to understand that the French populace loathed the Germans
and of course Hitler worst of all of them.
Yet somehow that supposedly unspeakable and unique and incomparable
"barbarity" and "brutality" of the Germans elicited among the French
nothing of the sort of massive popular armed resistance and mass
visceral outrage that the US forces and their president have aroused
among Iraqis.
Hitler could visit occupied Paris and see the sights. Bush had to
sneak in and out of US-occupied Baghdad and dared not stay more than
two or three hours, or venture outside the armed airport -- not even
guarded and accompanied by the most powerfully equipped army on earth.
If the German occupation of France has been portrayed as almost an
archetype of oppression and evil, how must we regard, and how will
future generations regard, the US occupation of Iraq?
Johnny Asia
As political scientist and ex-marine C. Douglas Lummis has said, "Air
bombardment is state terrorism, the terrorism of the rich. It has
burned up and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades
than have all the anti-state terrorists who have ever lived. Something
has benumbed our consciousness against this reality." Today we are
seen, along with Israel, as the greatest threats to world peace. When
hundreds of thousands throughout the planet call Bush "the world’s
number one terrorist," that less than admirable distinction is
automatically imputed onto the nation as a whole and the citizens in
particular. This can be seen in the world’s perception and treatment
of us today.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Valenzuela_Perpetual-War-Terror.htm
Perpetual War, Perpetual Terror
by Manuel Valenzuela
www.dissidentvoice.org
November 27, 2003
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition
of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military
industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced
power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this
combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should
take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry
can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that
security and liberty may prosper together."
---- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
In the United States last year there were over 11,000 deaths by
firearms. No other nation comes even close to matching this appetite
for death. That is eight thousand more than died on 9/11, but about
the same number as those innocent Iraqi civilians that perished by our
actions in Gulf War II. And the costs to society from injuries and
death due to firearms you ask? More than $60 billion. Those who
produce instruments of death in this country are not ignorant,
however; they know the statistics, they simply brush them aside.
Profit, after all, is much more important than stopping Americans from
arming themselves to the teeth and killing each other. What else
explains the gun lobby’s attempts to go against common sense? The
Second Amendment must be honored and preserved, they say, even if the
Founding Fathers lived in times of muskets, Indians, English threats
and manifest destiny, never imagining the killing power of today’s
firearms. It is no coincidence, then, that the same nation that allows
so many of its citizens to die at the hands of loaded weapons would
naturally export its appetite for human death abroad.
Today, the U.S. is responsible for 40% of all worldwide weapons’
sales. Tanks, fighter jets, artillery, helicopters, missiles,
landmines, machine guns, mortars, bullets, grenades, guns, you name
it, Guns’R’U.S. has it. Our nation supplies the world in instruments
of death. The United States’ Military Industrial Complex (MIC) makes a
killing from death, suffering and destruction. It exists only if
people die. Its signature is everywhere; in the millions of landmines
buried worldwide and the millions of amputee victims, many of them
children. It can be seen in civil wars that ravage the developing
world, from Africa to Asia to Latin America. From sea to shining sea,
our weapons we can see, from the exponentially growing threat of WMDs
– many of which were distributed at one time by our own government –
to the military hardware of tyrants and dictators, war criminals and
warlords.
Johnny Asia
Nov. 30. 2003
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Two foreigners were seriously wounded on
Sunday when their car was attacked on a highway south of Saddam
Hussein's hometown Tikrit in Iraq, a Reuters journalist at the scene
said.
One of the victims was slumped motionless inside the car and was
receiving no medical attention. U.S. troops were trying to revive the
second victim.
Locals said the men were Korean contractors, but this could not be
confirmed.
Johnny Asia
Nov. 30. 2003
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program,
and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much progress they were
making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in
1991, Iraqi physicists say.
Before that first Gulf War, the chief of the weapons program resorted
to "blatant exaggeration" in telling Iraq's president how much bomb
material was being produced, key scientist Imad Khadduri writes in a
new book.
Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an
Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. "It was all like building sand
castles," said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of
sciences.
Seven months after a U.S.-British invasion toppled Saddam's Baath
Party government, Iraqi scientists have grown more vocal in countering
Bush administration claims, used to justify the war, that Baghdad had
"reconstituted" nuclear weapons development, and that it once was a
mere six months from making a bomb.
At best, Khadduri writes, it would have taken Iraq several years to
build a nuclear weapon if the 1991 war and subsequent U.N. inspections
had not intervened.
His self-published "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," a chronicle of years of
secret weapons work and of a final escape into exile, is part of this
senior scientist's emergence from a low profile in Canada - intended
to refute what he calls a "massive deception" in Washington that led
the United States into war.
Months of searching by hundreds of U.S. experts have found no trace of
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, just as U.N.
inspectors found none before the war. No Iraqi scientists have
confirmed the programs were revived in recent years.
Bush administration officials still speak, nonetheless, of a threat
from such weapons - of Baghdad's "robust plans" for them, as Vice
President Dick Cheney puts it - in defending last March's U.S.
invasion of Iraq. They offer no hard evidence, however.
Khadduri, a U.S.- and British-educated physicist, writes that he did
theoretical work on nuclear weapons as long ago as the mid-1970s,
after joining Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission. By the late 1980s, as
the secret bomb program accelerated, he was in a pivotal position as
coordinator of all its scientific and engineering information.
The U.N. inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who
dismantled the bomb program after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 war, saw
Khadduri as a key source and conducted an all-day interview with him
earlier this year in Toronto, where he has resided since 1998.
"Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," available via online booksellers, dismisses
the U.S. contention that the atom-bomb establishment was somehow
resurrected after the IAEA demolished it, U.N. inspectors were
stationed in Iraq and Iraqi specialists were scattered.
"Where is the scientific and engineering staff required for such an
enormous effort?" he asks. "Where are the buildings and
infrastructure?"
The continuing U.S. weapons hunt amounts to no more than
"investigating mirages," he says.
An ex-bombmaker still in Iraq is just as dismissive of the
unsubstantiated U.S. allegations.
"There was no point in trying to revive this program. There was no
material, no equipment, no scientists," former bomb designer Sabah
Abdul Noor said in a recent interview at Baghdad's Technology
University.
"Scientists were scattered and under the eyes of inspectors, totally
scattered. To do a project, you have to be together."
Talib, the newly elected university dean, was an anti-Baathist who
didn't participate in the bomb program, but was close to many who did.
They vastly oversold their accomplishments before 1991, the physicist
said.
"They put a lot of lies on Saddam Hussein," he said in a Baghdad
interview. "They took a lot of money out of him through what you call,
in English, bluffing." When their installations were finally
demolished, it "saved their necks" by burying their mistakes, he said.
"They could tell Saddam, `There's nothing left.'"
Khadduri, in his core position in the program, could attest to the
overselling.
He writes that when he transferred top-secret documents of bomb
program chief Jafar Dhia Jafar to an optical disc in 1991, he found
the "blatant exaggeration" in a 1990 report to Saddam.
With its clever wording, Khadduri said in a telephone interview from
Toronto, "one could easily have been convinced we had produced a
couple of kilograms of enriched uranium instead of a couple of grams"
- that is, about four pounds of bomb material instead of a fraction of
an ounce.
A bomb would have required some 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
In a 1997 summary, the IAEA said there were no indications the Iraqis
ever produced more than a few grams of such material. It also said
there were "no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical
capability for the production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear
material of any practical significance."
Khadduri and others said the design and actual production of a bomb
would have been an extremely difficult task.
It was an impossible quest, "all futility," said one of Baghdad's
senior nuclear physicists, Hamed M. al-Bahili.
Al-Bahili, who joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1968 but
remained outside the weapons program, said his colleagues inside "all
knew they wouldn't achieve results." As for whether the program was
later revived, he said, "these American inspectors are wasting their
time."
Johnny Asia
Dec.1, 2003
SAMARRA, Iraq (AFP) - Scenes of devastation dotted the Iraqi town of
Samarra after fierce clashes between US forces and insurgents in which
senior police and hospital officials said at least eight civilians
were killed and dozens wounded by US fire.
Samarra hospital accident and emergency department anaesthetist Bassem
Ibrahim said "we received the bodies of eight civilians, including a
woman and a child".
It was not immediately clear whether the dead civilians included two
Iranian pilgrims said to have been killed in their bus.
Hospital director Abed Tawfiq told AFP "more than 60 people wounded by
gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the
hospital."
He said there were so many casualties from US fire during the intense
clashes with insurgents who ambushed American convoys in the town
Sunday afternoon and evening that they had had to be treated in the
hospital's corridors.
The town's police chief Colonel Ismail Mahmud Mohammed said around 20
of the wounded sustained their injuries while worshipping at a mosque
during sunset prayers.
He said the insurgents who had attacked US forces had withdrawn when
the Americans had returned fire, and charged that the troops had done
so indiscriminately with all weapons in their arsenal.
"There was an attack and a exchange of fire between the Americans and
the resistance lasting half an hour. The resistance withdrew, then
bombardments started using all manner of weapons in all directions and
without any discrimination," said Mohammed.
"Eight civilians were killed, including a child, and 45 wounded, some
20 of them in a mosque during sunset prayers," he said.
Meanwhile, AFP correspondents saw a civilian bus completely burned out
30 metres (yards) from the main entrance to the town's hospital.
The correspondents were shown two Iranian passports said to belong to
pilgrims killed in the vehicle. Nine others, also Iranian pilgrims,
were wounded, said the police guard outside the hospital, Mohammed
Ali.
Two middle-aged men were seen hugging each other in an agony of
emotion remorse alongside the bus.
The impact of a rocket could be seen on one of the outer walls of the
Al-Shafii mosque, some 50 metres (yards) from the hospital. Its
windows had been shattered by the blast.
Ali Abdullah Amin, 12, who was being treated at the hospital with his
five-year-old brother for wounds sustained in the mosque, told AFP
that their father had been killed in the firing.
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
Johnny Asia wrote:
>
> Eight civilians killed, dozens wounded by US fire in Iraq town
>
Hilarious. So the Saddamists start the fight and the collateral damage
is the fault of the American forces? You are too much.
Kevin
proud of it's unprovoked invasion and occupation of a smaller,
independent country. Didn't we think that this sort of thing was done
by Nazis and Communists? My, how the Bush regime has changed America.
pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com (Johnny Asia) wrote in message news:<3fc9e455...@news.mybizz.net>...
Unknown
during an interview with televangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker that "We
may be the generation that sees Armageddon."
But that certainly wasn't the first time. At a 1971 banquet for
California state senator James Mills, then-Governor Reagan broke it
all down for the honoree during the dessert course:
"In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, it says that the land of Israel will
come under attack by the armies of the ungodly nations, and it says
that Libya will be among them. Do you understand the significance of
that? Libya has now gone Communist, and that's a sign that the day of
Armageddon isn't far off.
"Biblical scholars have been saying for generations that Gog must be
Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None.
But it didn't seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when
Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has
become communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself
against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly.
"For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of
Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. It can't be too long now.
Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies
of God's people. That must mean that they will be destroyed by nuclear
weapons."
In an interview published in a December 1983 issue of People magazine,
the most powerful man in the world revealed that:
"[T]heologians had been studying the ancient prophecies -- what would
portend the coming of Armageddon-- and have said that never, in the
time between the prophecies up untiI now, has there ever been a time
in which so many of the prophecies are coming together. There have
been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was
coming, and so forth, but never anything like this."
He was also an ardent supporter of school prayer and anti-abortion
laws. He withheld funding from international contraception programs.
Over complaints by the ACLU, he officially declared 1983 to be "The
Year of the Bible." And he appointed likeminded Jesus freaks to his
cabinet. During a 1981 Congressional hearing, Reagan's first Secretary
of the Interior, James Watt, revealed the depth of his commitment to
preserving America's environment for posterity:
"I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the
Lord returns."
Unknown
"I never knew anything above Cs."
--President Reagan, in a moment of truthfulness, describes his
academic record to Barbara Walters, November 27, 1981
"They told stories about how inattentive and inept the President
was.... They said he wouldn't come to work--all he wanted to do was
to watch movies and television at the residence."
--Jim Cannon (an aide to Howard Baker) reporting what Reagan's
underlings told him, Landslide: The Unmaking of the President: 1984-88
"This President is treated by both the press and foreign leaders as if
he were a child.... It is major news when he honors a political or
economic discussion with a germane remark and not an anecdote about
his Hollywood days."
--Columnist Richard Cohen
"What planet is he living on?"
--President Mitterand of France poses this question about Reagan to
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.
"He demonstrated for all to see how far you can go in this life with a
smile, a shoeshine and the nerve to put your own spin on the facts."
--David Nyhan, Boston Globe columnist
"an amiable dunce"
--Clark Clifford (former Defense Secretary)
"Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears."
--British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
"...like reinventing the wheel."
--Larry Speakes (Reagan's former press secretary) describing what it
was like preparing the President for a press conference, Speaking Out:
The Reagan Presidency from Inside the White House
"The task of watering the arid desert between Reagan's ears is a
challenging one for his aides."
--Columnist David Broder
"He has the ability to make statements that are so far outside the
parameters of logic that they leave you speechless"
--Patti Davis (formerly Patricia Ann Reagan), talking about her
father, The Way I See It
"This loathing for government, this eagerness to prove that any
program to aid the disadvantaged is nothing but a boondoggle and a
money gobbler, leads him to contrive statistics and stories with
unmatched vigor."
--Mark Green, Reagan's Reign of Error
"President Reagan doesn't always check the facts before he makes
statements, and the press accepts this as kind of amusing."
--former president Jimmy Carter, March 6, 1984
"His errors glide past unchallenged. At one point...he alleged that
almost half the population gets a free meal from the government each
day. No one told him he was crazy. The general message of the
American press is that, yes, while it is perfectly true that the
emperor has no clothes, nudity is actually very acceptable this year."
--Simon Hoggart, in The Observer (London), 1986
Reagan quotes:
"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"
--Ronald Reagan (Governor of California), quoted in the Sacramento
Bee, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park, March 3, 1966
"I don't believe a tree is a tree and if you've seen one you've seen
them all."
--Governor Ronald Reagan, in the Sacramento Bee, September 14, 1966
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored
under a desk."
--Ronald Reagan (Republican candidate for president), quoted in the
Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980. (In reality, the
average nuclear reactor generates 30 tons of radioactive waste per
year.)
"I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens. I'm not a scientist and I
don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that one little
mountain out there, in these last several months, has probably
released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been
released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that
kind."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time magazine, October 20, 1980.
(According to scientists, Mount St. Helens emitted about 2,000 tons of
sulfur dioxide per day at its peak activity, compared with 81,000 tons
per day produced by cars.)
"Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible for 93
percent of the oxides of nitrogen."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1980.
(According to Dr. Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense
Fund, industrial sources are responsible for at least 65 percent and
possibly as much as 90 percent of the oxides of nitrogen in the U.S.)
"Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons
released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and
enforcing tough emission standards for man-made sources."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in Sierra, September 10, 1980
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. The U.S. Geological
Survey has told me that the proven potential for oil in Alaska alone
is greater than the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Detroit Free Press, March 23, 1980.
(According to the USGS, the Saudi reserves of 165.5 billion barrels
are 17 times the proven reserves--9.2 billion barrels--in Alaska.)
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
--Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1980
"Trains are not any more energy efficient than the average automobile,
with both getting about 48 passenger miles to the gallon."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1980. (The
U.S. Department of Transportation calculates that a 14-car train
traveling at 80 miles per hour gets 400 passenger miles to the gallon.
A 1980 auto carrying an average of 2.2 people gets 42.6 passenger
miles to the gallon.)
"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the
jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put
parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."
--Ronald Reagan (candidate for Governor of California), interviewed in
the Fresno Bee, October 10, 1965
"I have a feeling that we are doing better in the war [in Vietnam]
than the people have been told."
--Ronald Reagan, in the Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1967
"...the moral equal of our Founding Fathers."
--President Reagan, describing the Nicaraguan contras, March 1, 1985
"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time, May 17, 1976
"I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in
uniform four years myself."
--President Reagan, in an interview with foreign journalists, April
19, 1985. ("In costume" is more like it. Reagan spent World War II
making Army training films at Hal Roach Studios in Hollywood.)
"They've done away with those committees. That shows the success of
what the Soviets were able to do in this country."
--Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Washington Times, September 30, 1987.
(Reagan longs for the days of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the HCUA witch
hunts.)
"We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education
and the decline in profit over recent years."
--President Reagan, quoted in USA Today, April 26, 1983
"What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it
now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and
that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who
are homeless, you might say, by choice."
--President Reagan, defending himself against charges of callousness
on Good Morning America, January 31, 1984
"I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at the
point of a bayonet, if necessary."
--Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1965
"I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964."
--Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1966
"If there has to be a bloodbath then let's get it over with."
--Ronald Reagan (Governor of California), quoted in the San Francisco
Chronicle, May 15, 1969. (Reagan reveals how he intends to deal with
student protesters at the University of California, Berkeley.)
"Today a newcomer to the state is automatically eligible for our many
aid programs the moment he crosses the border."
--Ronald Reagan, in a speech announcing his candidacy for Governor,
January 3, 1966. (In fact, immigrants to California had to wait five
years before becoming eligible for benefits. Reagan acknowledged his
error, but nine months later said exactly the same thing.)
"...a faceless mass, waiting for handouts."
--Ronald Reagan, 1965. (Description of Medicaid recipients.)
"Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders."
--California Governor Ronald Reagan, in the Sacramento Bee, April 28,
1966
"We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry
every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet."
--Ronald Reagan, TV speech, October 27, 1964
"But I also happen to be someone who believes in tithing--the giving
of a tenth [to charity]."
--Ronald Reagan, from The Weekly Compilation of Presidential
Documents, February 8, 1982. (He may believe in tithing, but he
doesn't practice it. Reagan's total charitable giving of $5,965 did
not approach 10% of total income. It was more like 1.4%.)
"[Not] until now has there ever been a time in which so many of the
prophecies are coming together. There have been times in the past
when people thought the end of the world was coming, and so forth, but
never anything like this."
--President Reagan revealing a disturbing view about the "coming of
Armageddon," December 6, 1983
"History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20
percent of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect
for government.... When it reaches 25 percent, there comes an
increase in lawlessness."
--Ronald Reagan, in Time, April 14, 1980. (History shows no such
thing. Income tax rates in Europe have traditionally been far higher
than U.S. rates, while European crime rates have been much lower.)
"Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even
eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or
anything."
--Ronald Reagan, in Newsweek, April 21, 1980. (Wrong again.)
"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening,
coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close."
--Ronald Reagan to aide Stuart Spencer, 1966
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early Signs of Alzheimers' Disease:
Killer Trees.
After opining in August 1980 that "trees cause more pollution than
automobiles do," Reagan arrived at a campaign rally to find a tree
decorated with this sign: "Chop me down before I kill again."
Guns of Brixton.
"In England, if a criminal carried a gun, even though he didn't use
it, he was tried for first-degree murder and hung if he was found
guilty," Ronald Reagan claimed in April 1982. When informed that the
story was "just not true," White House spokesman Larry Speakes said,
"Well, it's a good story, though. It made the point, didn't it?"
Reagan repeated the story again on March 21, 1986 during an interview
with The New York Times.
The Liberator.
In November 1983, Reagan told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir that he had served as a photographer in a U.S. Army unit
assigned to film Nazi death camps. He repeated the story to Simon
Wiesenthal the following February. Reagan never visited or filmed a
concentration camp; he spent World War II in Hollywood, making
training films with the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air
Corps.
Arms for Hostages.
"We did not--repeat, did not--trade weapons or anything else for
hostages, nor will we," Reagan proclaimed in November 1986. Four
months later, on March 4, 1987, Reagan admitted in a televised
national address, "A few months ago, I told the American people I did
not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still
tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is
not."
Cadillac Queens.
Over a period of about five years, Reagan told the story of the
"Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social
Security cards, and collected benefits for "four nonexisting deceased
husbands," bilking the government out of "over $150,000." The real
welfare recipient to whom Reagan referred was actually convicted for
using two different aliases to collect $8,000. Reagan continued to use
his version of the story even after the press pointed out the actual
facts of the case to him.
Balance the Budget And Increase Defense Spending?
The Reagan administration introduced the 1981 Economic Recovery Act by
claiming that it would cut taxes by 30 percent, increase defense
spending by three-quarters of a trillion dollars, and achieve a
balanced budget within three years. Budget director David Stockman
admitted in November of 1981 that, "None of us really understands
what's going on with all these numbers" and that supply-side economics
"was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate."
Unknown
from 1981 to 1987.
Casey directed the successful presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan
in 1980. After Reagan was elected president, he named Casey to the
post of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). During his tenure at
the CIA, Casey played a large part in the shaping of Reagan's
foreign-policy, particularly its approach to Soviet expansionism.
This period of the Cold War saw a ramping up of the Agency's
anti-Soviet activities around the world. Casey was the principal
architect of the arms-for-hostages deal that became known as the
Iran-Contra affair. He also oversaw covert assistance to the
mujahadeen resistance in Afghanistan, the Solidarity movement in
Poland, and a number of coups and attempted coups in South- and
Central America.
Prior to heading the CIA, in the 1960s, Casey served as chairman of
the Securities and Exchange Commission. In World War II, he was a
member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Under William Casey, CIA covert operations proliferated. Casey was
featured prominently in Bob Woodward's book Veil: The Secret Wars of
the CIA (ISBN 0671601172).
Casey and vice presidential nominee Bush met face-to-face with Iranian
mullahs in 1980. According to one set of allegations, the pair slipped
off to Paris for such a meeting on Oct. 19, 1980.
Four French intelligence officials, including France's spy chief
Alexandre deMarenches in statements to his biographer, placed Casey at
the Paris meeting. But two other witnesses, a pilot named Heinrich
Rupp and Israeli intelligence official Ari Ben-Menashe, also claimed
to have seen Bush in Paris that day. Ben-Menashe testified that Casey
and Bush were accompanied by active-duty CIA officers.
A Washington Post article from 1992 says:
"On a secret visit by the CIA director to plan strategy for the war
against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, helicopters lifted CIA director
William Casey to three secret training camps near the Afghan border,
where he watched mujaheddin rebels fire heavy weapons and learn to
make bombs with CIA-supplied plastic explosives and detonators.
During the visit, Casey startled his Pakistani hosts by proposing that
they take the Afghan war into enemy territory -- into the Soviet Union
itself. Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan
to the Soviet Union's predominantly Muslim southern republics. The
Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as
well as books on Soviet atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on
historical heroes of Uzbek nationalism, according to Pakistani and
Western officials.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld,
then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan,
in Baghdad on December 20, 1983. Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing
Edited by Joyce Battle
Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114,
dated November 26, 1983, concerned specifically with U.S. policy
toward the Iran-Iraq war. The directive reflects the administration's
priorities: it calls for heightened regional military cooperation to
defend oil facilities, and measures to improve U.S. military
capabilities in the Persian Gulf, and directs the secretaries of state
and defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take
appropriate measures to respond to tensions in the area. It states,
"Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the
flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic
system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions
aimed at disrupting that traffic." It does not mention chemical
weapons [Document 26].
Soon thereafter, Donald Rumsfeld (who had served in various positions
in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including as President Ford's
defense secretary, and at this time headed the multinational
pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co.) was dispatched to the Middle
East as a presidential envoy. His December 1983 tour of regional
capitals included Baghdad, where he was to establish "direct contact
between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein,"
while emphasizing "his close relationship" with the president
[Document 28]. Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed
regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and
Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport
Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by
Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported
Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to
chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting [Document
31].
Rumsfeld also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, and the two
agreed, "the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests." Rumsfeld
affirmed the Reagan administration's "willingness to do more"
regarding the Iran-Iraq war, but "made clear that our efforts to
assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us,
citing the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf,
and human rights." He then moved on to other U.S. concerns [Document
32]. Later, Rumsfeld was assured by the U.S. interests section that
Iraq's leadership had been "extremely pleased" with the visit, and
that "Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a
person" [Document 36 and Document 37]. - Read entire article at
National Security Archive, George Washington University
Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'
Declassified papers leave the White House hawk exposed over his role
during the Iran-Iraq war
Tuesday December 31, 2002 The Guardian
WASHINGTON POST - 12-30-02
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds
"...Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward
Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now
defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a
special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-
Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to
Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost
daily" basis in defiance of international conventions. ..."
"...The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
authorized the sale to Iraq of ... poisonous chemicals and deadly
biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague. ..."
CNN Transcript - Interview with Rumsfeld - Sept 21, '02:
MCINTYRE: Well, let me take you back about 20 years ago. The date, I
believe, was December 20th, 1983, you were meeting with Saddam
Hussein. I think we have some video of that, of that meeting. Tell me
what was going on during this meeting.
RUMSFELD: Where did you get this video? From the Iraqi television...
MCINTYRE: You were pressed during the briefings -- during the hearings
this week by Senator Byrd on the question of whether the U.S., in any
way, aided Saddam Hussein in his chemical weapons program. At the
time, during the hearings, you said you had no knowledge of it. Have
you looked into it since then?
RUMSFELD: I had no knowledge. I have no knowledge today.
Hmmmmm.......Rummy looks and sounds like Reagan in the early stages of
dementia. Will Rumsfeld be the next member of the Reagan bunch to be
diagnosed with Alzheimers disease?
Unknown
killing AMerican troops and Iraqi civilians?
At least one US soldier killed in attacks on convoys near Samarra
Dec. 2
RIGGA, Iraq (AFP) - At least one US soldier was killed when two almost
simultaneous bomb attacks hit convoys near the Iraqi town of Samarra,
scene of deadly clashes between troops and insurgents two days ago, a
US officer at the scene told AFP.
"There was one soldier killed," said the clearly distressed officer,
who declined to give his name or elaborate.
Reporters said the convoy was escorting a truck carrying a damaged
Apache helicopter from Samarra south to Baghdad. The aircraft had a
large hole in its rear but it was unclear whether it was accidental or
through enemy action.
Witness Kanaan Kanel Kanaani told reporters that the last vehicle in
the dozen-strong convoy, a Humvee, was hit by a rocket-propelled
grenade or a mine.
"The driver lost control and the vehicle veered across the road,
crashing into a parked pickup loaded with oranges," said Kanaani. "One
soldier was killed."
Arafat Enab, 21, said that it was an improvised explosive device of
the sort favoured by anti-US insurgents that hit the Humvee.
"Half of the vehicle was destroyed and the driver received fatal head
injuries," said Enab.
Unknown
was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding
colonel in Samarra earlier.
"Some of those earlier reports might have been a bit off," Kimmitt
said
Samarra clash toll still a mystery
Dec. 2, 2003
The US military has vowed to continue aggressive tactics after saying
it killed 54 Iraqis following an ambush, but commanders admitted they
had no proof to back up their claims.
The only corpses at Samarra's hospital were those of civilians,
including two elderly Iranian visitors and a child.
A top military commander acknowledged on Monday that the toll was
based entirely on estimates gleaned from troop debriefings and that US
soldiers had not recovered a single body from the scene of Sunday’s
clashes.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt estimated the number of dead in Samarra
at 54, along with 22 wounded, saying they were all resistance
fighters. He also said one person was detained.
He admitted that the one resistance fighter now confirmed in custody
was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding
colonel in Samarra earlier.
"Some of those earlier reports might have been a bit off," Kimmitt
said
"Are you asking me to produce (them)?" asked Colonel Fredrick
Rudesheim, who heads the 3rd Combat Brigades that was involved in the
clashes, when questioned by reporters about the absence of any
fighters' bodies at Samarra's single hospital or on the city's
streets.
Challenged about what happened to the bodies of the 54 said to have
been killed, Kimmitt said: "I would suspect that the enemy would have
carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base
was."
Asked about reports from senior police and hospital officials in the
town of only eight civilians killed and dozens more wounded, the US
general insisted: "We have no such reports whether from medical
authorities or police."
But a medic at Samarra hospital said the bodies of - eight civilians
including a woman and a child - were received at the hospital.
Hospital director Abd Tawfiq said "more than 60 people wounded by
gunfire and shrapnel from US rounds are being treated at the
hospital".
And ambulance driver Abd al-Munaim Muhammad said he had not ferried
any fighters wounded or killed and wearing the black Fidayin outfit
which US soldiers claimed their assailants wore.
"If I had seen bodies, I would have picked them up. It's not like the
Americans would have done it," he said.
"If the death toll had reached that announced by the Americans, the
atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different," he added.
Chip
> reminds one about the body count lies that came out of Vietnam...
>
Yep, it sure does. When you need a great victory, just manufacture it.
The engagement was a victory, but because we denied the insurgents the
money they were obviously trying to get their hands on, not because of
the body count. But I guess Bush & Co can't depend on their
cheerleaders to understand strategic and tactical concepts, so they
spoon-feed them bullshit that they can understand and accept as fact
forever, no matter how any times they or others debunk or correct it.
Chip
Unknown
The headlines of "54 guerillas kiled", "top Saddam aide
captured" are meant for the stupid freepers, dittoheads
and other Bushist morons. Those idiotd will continue to
believe the original headline long after its been debunked.
The Bushists need the blind support of those dimwits
to stay in power.
U.S. Denies Reports Top Aide of Saddam Captured
KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - The U.S. military denied reports that Izzat
Ibrahim al-Douri, the most wanted man in Iraq after Saddam Hussein,
had been captured in a raid on Tuesday.
"He was definitely not captured in today's mission," Major Doug
Vincent of the 173rd Airborne Brigade told reporters who accompanied
troops on the raid in Hawija, near Kirkuk.
Earlier, several high-level sources in Iraq's Governing Council said
they had been informed that Ibrahim was killed or captured in the
operation, which began early on Tuesday and was still going on in the
evening.
Fair & Balanced © Trebor
It was ineveitable. Wars of conquest are never welcomed by those on
the receiving end. Sooner or later an example must be made to the
conquered population, an example so terrible that they think twice
about aiding or participating in any rebellion. The Romans knew this
quite well, and were experts at merciless slaughters inteneded to send
a message. The Nazis also would wipe out entire towns for the actions
of one or two. More recently, in Vietnam, massacres like My Lai were
more common than was ever acknowledged.
Now we have the massacre of Samarra, with the people of Samarra
claiming one thing and the military claiming another. And as so often
happens, it's likely that the Iraqi version is much closer to the
truth than the American military. It's likely that there was some
initial fire from Iraqi insurgents, and just as likely that American
forces responed with indiscriminate slaughter, involving many
civillians. Because in wars of conquest there really are no
civillians - there's only potential enemies and more bloody lessons to
be meted out.
The trouble with Americans is that they want to act like a conquering
power - they want all the glory and the oil - but they don't want to
see themselves as a ruthless conquering power. So even as American
forces keep murdering civillians in retribution, they lie about what
really happened, they don't even keep count of civillians casualties,
and just call it "collateral damage". Which in its own way is even
more ruthless than the Nazis.
ciao,
Trebor
Mike Bates
> He admitted that the one resistance fighter now confirmed in custody
> was a sharp reduction on the 11 claimed captured by the commanding
> colonel in Samarra earlier.
>
> "Some of those earlier reports might have been a bit off," Kimmitt
> said
>
>
Reminds me of the "body counts" they did in Vietnam. They would
interview US soldiers after a confrontation, and would take "I shot
something behind the bushes and it went down" as a confirmed kill. If
two US soldiers shot and killed a particular enemy in battle, the kill
could easily be double-counted.
This just sounds like another Justice Department PR move..."See! We're
winning! We killed 48, no...no...54 of them!"
>
>
> Samarra clash toll still a mystery
> Dec. 2, 2003
>
> The US military has vowed to continue aggressive tactics after saying
> it killed 54 Iraqis following an ambush, but commanders admitted they
> had no proof to back up their claims.
>
> The only corpses at Samarra's hospital were those of civilians,
> including two elderly Iranian visitors and a child.
>
> A top military commander acknowledged on Monday that the toll was
> based entirely on estimates gleaned from troop debriefings and that US
> soldiers had not recovered a single body from the scene of Sunday?s
Ahn Fyuh Wi Dizayah
> power - they want all the glory and the oil - but they don't want to
> see themselves as a ruthless conquering power. So even as American
> forces keep murdering civillians in retribution, they lie about what
> really happened, they don't even keep count of civillians casualties,
> and just call it "collateral damage". Which in its own way is even
> more ruthless than the Nazis.
Of course it is. The Nazis recognized that power speaks only one language,
and acted upon it for their ideological goals. America has no goal but
money, and that's why the Nazis referred to it as a "Zionist state."
(Personally, I think it's a Judeo-Christian theocracy.)
Unknown
BOISE, Idaho - A Boise-based engineering and construction company has
suspended work on power line towers being built in northern Iraq
because two engineers for a subcontractor were killed and two others
wounded in a weekend attack.
Washington Group International will re-evaluate security before
resuming work on the project, said spokesman Jack Herrmann.
The engineers, employed by Omu Electric Co. of Seoul, South Korea,
were ambushed Sunday near Samarra. U.S. officials said it was part of
a campaign to undermine international support for the U.S.-led
occupation of Iraq.
Construction of the transmission towers is part of a $110 million
contract Washington Group won from the U.S. government to rebuild
Iraq's power infrastructure.
About three dozen Washington Group employees working on that and other
projects under the contract remain in Iraq, Herrmann said.
Harry
> While he was running for office in 1980, candidate Reagan announced
> during an interview with televangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker that "We
> may be the generation that sees Armageddon."
>
>
> But that certainly wasn't the first time. At a 1971 banquet for
> California state senator James Mills, then-Governor Reagan broke it
> all down for the honoree during the dessert course:
>
My favorite Ronnie story, besides the one about the guy being too old,
senile and too close to the end of his term to impeach, is the story
Ronnie told of his service in WWII, including a tale of a B-17 gunner.
He used to tell this story a lot, until someone pointed out that he
was never in the service and the story he was telling was in fact the
plot of a movie he had made.
Raygun continued to tell the story.
Jenn
realp...@scn.org (Harry) wrote:
> (pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com) wrote in message
> news:<3fcc732c...@news.mybizz.net>...
> > While he was running for office in 1980, candidate Reagan announced
> > during an interview with televangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker that "We
> > may be the generation that sees Armageddon."
> >
> >
> > But that certainly wasn't the first time. At a 1971 banquet for
> > California state senator James Mills, then-Governor Reagan broke it
> > all down for the honoree during the dessert course:
> >
>
> My favorite Ronnie story, besides the one about the guy being too old,
> senile and too close to the end of his term to impeach, is the story
> Ronnie told of his service in WWII, including a tale of a B-17 gunner.
> He used to tell this story a lot, until someone pointed out that he
> was never in the service and the story he was telling was in fact the
> plot of a movie he had made.
>
> Raygun continued to tell the story.
>
He also repeatedly told world leaders that he had been present with the
US Army when the nazi death camps were opened
Unknown
Dubya could very well be the Antichrist!
"By peace he shall destroy many," and "he shall come in peaceably and
obtain the kingdom by flatteries" (Daniel 8:25 ...
http://www.jlbooks.com/Spiritual_Religious/The%20Ultimate%20Deception.htm
....The Antichrist will conquer armies throughout the Middle East
during his initial ascendancy to power and prominence!
John 8:44
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
http://www.countdown.org/armageddon/antichrist.htm
The Antichrist!--also described in the Bible as the "son of perdition"
& the "beast"!
The Antichrist will rise to power on a wave of world euphoria, as he
temporarily saves the world from its desperate economic, military &
political problems with a brilliant 7-year plan for world peace,
economic stability & religious freedom.
gr...@internet.charitydays.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________________________
He snorted cocaine.
He dodged the draft.
He was a failure at business until his wealthy friends rescued him.
His friends knew him as an alcoholic womanizer with a bad temper.
But despite all this, and against the wishes of the people of his country, he became
"The Leader of the Free World".
Today, with his addled mind and low I.Q., he couldn't think his way out of a burning phone booth
without the advice of his staff.
How has he done it ?
The Bible shows us a way to prove whether or not a person is the Antichrist, through numerology.
Rev 13:18 says:
"Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man;
and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."
That is, the number 666.
The way biblical scholars and numerologists convert the names of men into numbers is through a
simple numerical code.
Let's assign the 26 letters of the alphabet the numbers 1 through 26.
It looks like this:
A01 B02 C03 C04 E05 F06 G07 H08 I09
J10 K11 L12 M13 N14 O15 P16 Q17 R18
S19 T20 U21 V22 W23 X24 Y25 Z26
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now if you add up the numbers of his name, George Walker Bush,
according to the table above you get 7+5+15+18+7+5 for George,
+23+1+12+11+5+18 for Walker,
and +2+21+19+8 for Bush,
which all adds up to a total of 177 = 1+7+7 = 15 = 1+5 = 6.
******That's our first six..
Bush was born July 6, 1946.
So if you add up all the digits in his date of birth you get 7+6+1+9+4+6 = 33 = 3+3 = 6.
******That's our second six.
The Antichrist's first step in his goal of attaining complete World Domination for Satan,
was achieved on that fateful day Bush was first elected governor of Texas
--- his first elected office --- on November 8, 1994.
Again, just by adding up the digits we get 1+1+8+1+9+9+4 = 33 = 3+3 = 6.
******That's our third six.
So there you have it --- 666 --- the number of the Beast.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Unknown
Dec. 3, 2003
SAMARRA, Iraq (AFP) - A man describing himself as a rebel spokesman
rejected US reports of 54 insurgents killed in intense exchanges with
US troops here, saying just two militants had died, both of whom were
among eight civilians reported killed.
"We had two killed in the attack," the man told French journalist
Pierre Barbancey, correspondent for the French daily L'Humanite.
"Both their bodies were among (the eight at the hospital)," said the
man, saying he was spokesman for the two-month-old National Resistance
Front for the Liberation of Iraq.
In all just 12 people took part in Sunday's ambush in Samarra, not the
64 or more spoken of by the Americans, said the spokesman, who talked
to the journalist unarmed in a private home in the city.
"When the convoy entered the town, four groups of three people each
took up position to attack it," he said.
The coalition's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark
Kimmitt, told a Baghdad briefing Monday two groups of 30 insurgents
each had ambushed two armoured columns escorting a large delivery of
Iraqi cash into Samarra. He said A third group of four men in a black
BMW attacked a separate engineering detachment as it passed through
the town.
Asked why US commanders had spoken of so many more assailants, the
rebel spokesman said: "They wanted to portray us as common criminals
seeking to commit a hold-up. We only wanted to attack the (US) convoy.
"If we'd wanted to take the money, we could have attacked the bank
whenever we wanted to, without the need to take on the Americans."
The spokesman said his local resistance group had been formed in
Samarra in June, although the national umbrella grouping had not been
founded until September 26, initially under a slightly different name.
He stressed that he himself had left Saddam Hussein's former ruling
Baath party as long ago as 1984.
"Right from the start we excluded from our organization members of the
Baath party and soldiers of the army and Republican Guard who
surrendered Baghdad to the Americans without a fight," he said.
"We're a nationalist movement. Of course we have an Islamic
orientation because most Iraqis are Muslims but we have Shiites,
Sunnis, Christians and Kurds among our members.
"Our resistance is like that led by (General Charles) de Gaulle in
France against the Germans during the war (World War II)."
The spokesman said his group had lost a total of 17 fighters since its
formation, including some who had been killed while handling
explosives in the preparation of makeshift bombs.
He said his men had hit a US Apache helicopter with a rocket-propelled
grenade during an attack on the Central Intelligence Agency's base in
Samarra on November 20.
"The tail of the chopper was hit and it was forced to make a hard
landing."
He said the wider grouping to which his outfit belonged had also been
responsible for a deadly ambush against seven Spanish intelligence
agents south of Baghdad on Saturday.
"The group saw the (two) cars pass by once and thought they were CIA
agents, as the Americans use the same kind of vehicle. They took up
position and awaited their return, then attacked.
"It was only afterwards that the group realised that the victims were
Spaniards. But it doesn't matter, as we have decided to attack all the
foreign forces collaborating with the Americans."
Unknown
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO and FORD FESSENDEN The New York Times
HOUSTON — As a student at Jefferson Davis High here, Rosa
Arevelo seemed the "Texas miracle" in motion. After years of classroom
drills, she passed the high school exam required for graduation on her
first try. A program of college prep courses earned her the
designation "Texas scholar."
At the University of Houston, though, Ms. Arevelo discovered the
distance between what Texas public schools called success and what she
needed to know. Trained to write five-paragraph "persuasive essays"
for the state exam, she was stumped by her first writing assignment.
She failed the college entrance exam in math twice, even with a year
of remedial algebra. At 19, she gave up and went to trade school.
"I had good grades in high school, so I thought I could do well in
college," Ms. Arevelo said. "I thought I was getting a good education.
I was shocked."
In recent years, Texas has trumpeted the academic gains of Ms. Arevelo
and millions more students largely on the basis of a state test, the
Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, or TAAS. As a presidential
candidate, Texas's former governor, George W. Bush, contended that
Texas's methods of holding schools responsible for student performance
had brought huge improvements in passing rates and remarkable strides
in eliminating the gap between white and minority children.
The claims catapulted Houston's superintendent, Rod Paige, to
Washington as education secretary and made Texas a model for the
country. The education law signed by President Bush in January 2002,
No Child Left Behind, gives public schools 12 years to match Houston's
success and bring virtually all children to academic proficiency.
But an examination of the performance of students in Houston by The
New York Times raises serious doubts about the magnitude of those
gains. Scores on a national exam that Houston students took alongside
the Texas exam from 1999 to 2002 showed much smaller gains and falling
scores in high school reading.
Compared with the rest of the country, Houston's gains on the national
exam, the Stanford Achievement Test, were modest. The improvements in
middle and elementary school were a fraction of those depicted by the
Texas test and were similar to those posted on the Stanford test by
students in Los Angeles.
Over all, a comparison of the performance of Houston students who took
the Stanford exam in 2002 and in 1999 showed most did not advance in
relation to their counterparts across the nation. More than half of
them either remained in the same place or lost ground in reading and
math.
"Is it better or worse than what's going on anywhere else?" said
Edward H. Haertel, a professor of education at Stanford University.
"On average it looks like it's not." Stanford University has no
relationship to the test.
In June, the Texas Education Agency found rampant undercounting of
school dropouts. Houston school officials have also been accused of
overstating how many high school graduates were college bound and of
failing to report violent crimes in schools to state authorities.
The Houston officials strenuously defend the district's record.
Kathryn Sanchez, head of assessment for Houston's schools, said
students were doing well on both the Texas exam and the Stanford test,
given the city's large number of poor and minority students. Ms.
Sanchez said that Houston students had also done well on the National
Assessment of Educational Progress, a federally mandated test widely
referred to as "the nation's report card."
On that test, fourth graders in Houston and New York outdid children
in four other cities in writing, to score at the national average.
Fourth graders in New York and Houston also led children in other
cities in reading, yet fell short of the national average. Of all six
cities, however, Houston excluded the most children with limited
English from taking the national assessment, and some researchers
suggest that removing such students may have helped raise Houston's
score.
z
> animaux wrote:
>
> > reminds one about the body count lies that came out of Vietnam...
> >
Gee, and so soon after Bush replicated Johnson's 'morale boosting'
visit to the troops in Nam. Seems he should have been paying more
attention in college, maybe.
>
> Yep, it sure does. When you need a great victory, just manufacture it.
>
> The engagement was a victory, but because we denied the insurgents the
> money they were obviously trying to get their hands on, not because of
> the body count.
On the other hand, they got more than the money's worth of
anti-American feeling in the Samarrans whose town was half flattened.
Unknown
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There can be no doubt that global warming is
real and is being caused by people, two top U.S. government climate
experts said.
Industrial emissions are a leading cause, they say -- contradicting
critics, already in the minority, who argue that climate change could
be caused by mostly natural forces.
"There is no doubt that the composition of the atmosphere is changing
because of human activities, and today greenhouse gases are the
largest human influence on global climate," wrote Thomas Karl,
director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
National Climatic Data Center, and Kevin Trenberth, head of the
Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research.
"The likely result is more frequent heat waves, droughts, extreme
precipitation events, and related impacts, e.g., wildfires, heat
stress, vegetation changes, and sea-level rise," they added in a
commentary to be published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Karl and Trenberth estimate that, between 1990 and 2100, there is a 90
percent probability that average global temperatures will rise by
between 3.1 and 8.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 and 4.9 degrees Celsius)
because of human influences on climate.
Such dramatic warming will further melt already crumbling glaciers,
inundating coastal areas. Many other groups have already shown that
ice in Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica is melting quickly.
Karl and Trenberth noted that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere
have risen by 31 percent since preindustrial times.
Carbon dioxide is the No. 1 greenhouse gas, causing warming
temperatures by trapping the Sun's energy in the atmosphere.
Emissions of sulfate and soot particles have significant effects too,
but more localized, they said.
"Given what has happened to date and is projected in the future,
significant further climate change is guaranteed," they wrote.
The United States has balked at signing international treaties to
reduce climate-changing emissions, but the two experts said global
cooperation is key.
"Climate change is truly a global issue, one that may prove to be
humanity's greatest challenge," they wrote. "It is very unlikely to be
adequately addressed without greatly improved international
cooperation and action."
Starman
wrote:
I dunno how compelling the numerology numbers game can be, it doesn't
ring my bell, BUT coincidently I found myself earlier today suddenly
reflecting on the question of could Bush BE the Beast of revelations
-- very oddly coincidental, since I haven't even thought of the Beast
prophecy for -- well, months at least. Well, now I remember, it was
triggered by seeing the cover of a checkout-stand Enquirer/Star type
publication luridly advertising end-of-year Nostradamus prophecies;
Bush certainly fits the model of hypocritical evil. Arguably, he's one
of the most powerful people on earth, if not THE most powerful, just
in his ability to launch Armaggedon. How low the mighty have fallen!
Starman
Unknown
Dec. 4, 2003
JERUSALEM (AP) - A former Israeli intelligence officer charged
Thursday that Israeli agencies produced a flawed picture of Iraqi
weapons capabilities and substantially contributed to mistakes made in
U.S. and British pre-war assessments on Iraq.
The comments of reserve Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom represented an unusual
criticism of the Israeli intelligence community, long regarded as one
of the world's best. Prior to his retirement in 1998, Brom served in
Israeli military intelligence for 25 years, and acted as the deputy
chief of planning for the Israeli army.
Brom first raised his concerns in a report, "The War in Iraq: An
Intelligence Failure?" The article was published this week in
"Strategic Assessment," the quarterly bulletin the Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies, where he works as a researcher.
American and British leaders used the purported existence of the
weapons, including chemical and biological agents, as one of the main
justifications for going to war with Iraq earlier this year.
Since ousting Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led coalition's technical
experts have continued a futile search for Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction.
"Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the U.S. and Britain in
developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction capability," Brom said. "It badly overestimated the Iraqi
threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that
the weapons existed."
"Even if Iraq had any Scud missiles left, I can't understand how
Israeli intelligence officers came to believe they threatened Israel,
particularly when they hadn't been used in more than 10 years," Brom
said. "It's a clear example of how an inability to think clearly is
undermining the Israeli intelligence community."
Richard
a year to scientists to work on the issue ONLY if the conclusion of the
studies is prove it IS real and no money is provided if alternate
theories are being advanced? What are they afraid of?
-Rich
(pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com) wrote in message news:<3fceadbf...@news.mybizz.net>...
hank
> Dubya could very well be the Antichrist!
>
> "By peace he shall destroy many," and "he shall come in peaceably and
> obtain the kingdom by flatteries" (Daniel 8:25 ...
>
> http://www.jlbooks.com/Spiritual_Religious/The%20Ultimate%20Deception.htm
> ....The Antichrist will conquer armies throughout the Middle East
> during his initial ascendancy to power and prominence!
>
> John 8:44
>
Bush?..... But everyone thinks that
HILLARY CLINTON is the antichrist....
how can there be two of them?
peace
love
hank
Unknown
By JILL BARTON, Associated Press Writer
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Investigators who raided the offices of Rush
Limbaugh's doctors said in search warrants filed Thursday that the
conservative radio commentator engaged in illegal drug use and "doctor
shopping" for prescription painkillers.
The warrants - which name four doctors and several prescription drugs
— show investigators were looking for records including prescription
disbursements, appointment schedules, receipts and a medical
questionnaire when they raided the offices Nov. 25.
"Mr. Limbaugh's actions violate the letter, and spirit" of the law
that relates to doctor shopping, stated one of warrants, signed by
Asim Brown, a law enforcement agent assigned to the state attorney's
office anti-money laundering task force. Doctor shopping refers to
looking for a doctor willing to prescribe drugs illegally.
Unknown
Dec. 4, 2003
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli intelligence overplayed the threat posed by
Iraq and reinforced the U.S. and British assessment that Saddam
Hussein had large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, a retired
Israeli general said Thursday.
The Israeli assessment may have been colored by politics, including a
desire to see the Iraqi leader toppled, said Shlomo Brom, who was a
senior Israeli military intelligence officer and is now a researcher
with Israel's top strategic think tank.
Brom first raised his concerns in a report, "The War in Iraq: An
Intelligence Failure?" The article was published this week in
"Strategic Assessment," the quarterly bulletin the Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies, where he works as a researcher.
American and British leaders used the purported existence of the
weapons, including chemical and biological agents, as the main
justification for going to war with Iraq earlier this year.
Brom stopped short of accusing Israeli intelligence officials of
intentionally misleading Britain and the United States.
His assertions could, however, undermine the reputation of the Israeli
intelligence service, one of the most respected in the world.
In an article in Strategic Assessment, a publication of the Jaffee
Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Brom said weapons
of mass destruction probably would not be found in significant
quantities in Iraq.
He said Israeli intelligence overplayed the potential danger before
the war. Based on intelligence warnings that a U.S.-led invasion could
trigger an Iraqi missile attack on Israel, possibly with chemical or
biological weapons, the Israeli military ordered citizens to update
their gas mask kits. As the war began, the military told Israelis to
prepare for an imminent attack and carry the masks with them
everywhere.
Israelis largely ignored the order, and even Cabinet ministers were
seen without the kits. In the end, Iraq did not fire missiles at
Israel.
Brom told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that "Israeli
intelligence was a full partner with the United States and Britain in
developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction capability."
lorez
(pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com) wrote:
> General: Israelis Exaggerated Iraq WMD Threat
> Dec. 4, 2003
That's an opinion piece from a left wing, retired intel guy. He's given
numerous interviews and written plenty of articles about Iraq over the
last couple of years and this is the first time he's raised this
concern.
These guys are a little more up to speed:
http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v6n3p5Kam.html
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies
Israeli Intelligence on Iraq:
Sound Professional Assessment
[excerpt]
Was there an Intelligence Failure?
If the initial premise of this discussion proves to be true, and no
weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq, it will appear that there
was an Israeli intelligence failure, along with the American and British
intelligence failures. Israeli intelligence claimed that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction and that there was a small possibility that
Saddam Hussein would launch missiles against Israel, and neither
assertion has been proven. However, this conclusion is partial and
simplistic, and it relates only to the outcome. It does not take into
consideration the way that the assessment was constructed, the use made
of the information at the disposal of the intelligence community, or the
considerations and the logical reasoning that constituted the foundation
of the assessment. An in-depth examination must explore whether the
intelligence community used the information at its disposal in a
competent and balanced manner and whether it would have been more
correct to adopt an alternative assessment. In this context, several
critical angles must be probed.
First, over many years Saddam Hussein created the impression in Israel
and other countries that he was steadily striving to build up Iraq as
the dominant power in the Gulf region and in the Arab world, and that
the effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction was a key component of
this aspiration. This image was concretized by Saddam's huge investments
in building a very large army, and the comprehensive efforts channeled
towards acquiring a large variety of non-conventional weapons systems,
including nuclear weapons. This image was also greatly bolstered by
Saddam's decision to go to war with two of his neighbors, at his own
initiative and without being forced to do so.
From the 1990s onward, it was justified to assess that Saddam had not
changed his ways or his outlook and that he would continue striving to
acquire strategic weapons, despite his defeat in 1991. Iraq made great
efforts to conceal its activity in the realm of non-conventional weapons
from UN inspectors, and in this way created the impression that Iraq had
something to hide. This impression was enhanced by the fact that Iraq
paid a heavy price - in the form of sanctions, economic distress, human
suffering, and limitations on sovereignty - with its policy of
concealment and its evasiveness during the years following the Gulf War.
Had Iraq opened up all the suspected installations to inspectors, it
would have hastened the lifting of sanctions that were imposed on the
country. The fact that it did not do so increased the suspicion that it
was concealing non-conventional weapons. This suspicion was strengthened
by the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors from Iraq in 1998, which led
to the logical conclusion that Saddam was attempting to free himself
from supervision in order to accelerate his efforts to acquire weapons
of mass destruction.
Second, the starting point of the intelligence assessment was solid:
there was no doubt at all that Iraq had long-range missiles capable of
striking Israel and chemical and biological weapons until 1991, and that
Iraq had used a large number of missiles and chemical weapons against
its adversaries. Due to the serious suspicion - supported by UN
inspectors - that Iraq had succeeded in concealing some types of
weapons, and the fact that Iraq had already proven its capability of
producing chemical weapons, biological weapons, and non-conventional
missile warheads, it was reasonable to assume that it possessed some
degree of non-conventional capability. The fact that Iraq had been free
of intense supervision for the four years preceding the war contributed
to the assessment, as did the weak monitoring of Iraq's activities
during this period.
Third, the state of information on Iraq's effort to acquire weapons of
mass destruction was problematic. Western intelligence services
identified many indications suggesting Iraqi activity, but apparently
had no hard evidence that would enable them to present an unequivocal
picture of Iraq's building of non-conventional capabilities.
Theoretically, the state of information should have raised doubts
regarding Iraq's capabilities in the realm of weapons of mass
destruction. However in practice, it appears that such doubts did not
arise for two reasons. On the one hand, most of the information - even
if it was incomplete or not solid - portrayed a picture of consistent
Iraqi attempts to build up such capabilities and their at least partial
attainment. Experience has taught intelligence communities that only
rarely is it possible to collect hard evidence of concrete activity
pertaining to weapons of mass destruction. More importantly, there was
apparently no concrete evidence pointing to the opposite possibility -
that Iraq possessed no chemical capability, no biological capability,
and no missiles, and that Saddam had halted his efforts to acquire such
capabilities. On the other hand, the inspection regime, which had access
to selected Iraqi sites and was regarded as relatively objective,
reported explicitly that Iraq retained biological warfare capability and
also left open the possibility that Iraq had succeeded in concealing and
preserving some of its chemical warfare capabilities and a number of
missiles.
The inspection regime's reports noted particularly the possibility that
Iraq had continued developing its biological program. During all the
years of inspection activity, Iraq attempted to hide its biological
program in entirety (until 1995), or components of its infrastructure:
for example, specific bacterial growth media for certain bacteria (after
1995). It was clear that in the area of biological weapons development,
Iraq had an extensive infrastructure of human resources and years of
experience. During the 1990s, intelligence information had accumulated
(even if it was not of sufficiently high quality) pointing to the
possible renewal of Iraq's biological program, and inspectors raised the
serious possibility that it had never been halted. This information,
coupled with the inspectors' reports, indicated significant activity
towards developing means of attacking Israel with biological weapons,
such as converting drop tanks and adapting them for the dispersal of
biological warfare agents. The possibility that components of Iraq's
biological program also remained intact was very real: anthrax bacteria
can remain stable for decades, and it was therefore possible to hide
anthrax-based biological weapons. These considerations had an impact on
the formation of the logical working premise that if Iraq under the rule
of Saddam Hussein possessed the capability of developing
non-conventional weapons systems, it would in fact do so.
Fourth, conceptions are by nature rigid and enduring and tend not to
change quickly. The assessment regarding Iraq's non-conventional
capability was constructed over a period of years by many intelligence
analysts, and grew even more steadfast due to the fact that the West's
best intelligence services were associated with it and nurtured it, as
it, in turn, nurtured the assessments of Western intelligence services.
The chief way that such a rigid assessment could undergo a change is
through the acquisition of solid evidence to the contrary that would
raise doubts about it. Clearly, no such information was found.
Finally, the assessment of Iraq's capability influenced the assessment
of Iraq's intentions. The intelligence assessment advised that Iraq had
chemical and biological warfare capabilities, and that it possessed a
small number of missiles - and possibly fighter planes and an unmanned
aerial vehicle - that could launch these weapons. This assessment of
capability made it impossible to disregard a scenario in which Saddam
would launch a few missiles at Israel as a suicidal measure.
Herein there were two opposing considerations. On the one hand, the
circumstances surrounding the period leading up to the war were clearly
different from those characterizing the Gulf War period. In 2003 Iraq
was more limited in capability, while Israel's passive and active
defensive capabilities were greatly improved, and possibly sufficient to
deter the Iraqis from trying to attack it. Launching one missile against
Israel would have proven that Saddam had been lying all these years, and
would have justified an American attack. Western Iraq was supposed to
have been contained by the Americans at an early stage in the war, and
this would have negated Iraq's ability to attack Israel. Moreover, this
time Iraq had no reason to drag Israel into a war, as it had in 1991.
On the other hand, under circumstances of heavy pressure, Saddam was
liable to act unpredictably. In addition, he had already proven his
willingness to provoke his neighbors, the United States, and Israel when
he did not hesitate to launch missiles at Israel in 1991, despite
Israel's military superiority. In these circumstances, the correct
approach was to take into consideration the possibility - with the
appropriate assignment of low probability - of an Iraqi attack.
Unknown
"Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed,"
Kissinger said, according to the documents, first reported by The
Miami Herald. "I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be
supported. The quicker you succeed, the better."
Kissinger-Argentine Junta Talks Detailed
By KEVIN GRAY, Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger lent verbal support to Argentina's military junta, which had
been cracking down on dissidents, according to newly declassified
documents obtained by a U.S. watchdog group.
"We would like you to succeed," Kissinger told Argentine Foreign
Minister Adm. Cesar Augusto Guzzetti during a meeting in New York Oct.
7, 1976, according to the U.S. government records.
His comments were revealed in papers obtained and released Thursday by
the National Security Archives, an independent Washington-based group
that monitors Freedom of Information Act issues.
Kissinger did not immediately respond to calls for comment from The
Associated Press. But he has repeatedly denied ever condoning human
rights abuses.
He has increasingly faced criticism for U.S. backing of authoritarian
governments in Latin America and Southeast Asia as part of
Washington's bid at the time to contain the spread of communism.
In the seven-page transcript marked "secret", Kissinger is quoted as
telling Guzzetti that human rights issues were growing in Argentina.
According to the document, he offers support, nonetheless, to the
military rulers who seized power in a coup in March 1976.
"Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed,"
Kissinger said, according to the documents, first reported by The
Miami Herald. "I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be
supported. The quicker you succeed, the better."
The Argentine military launched its systematic crackdown on leftists
groups in March 1976, beginning six years of iron-fisted rule that saw
8,900 people disappear, according to a government report. Human rights
groups put the number at around 30,000.
Last year, declassified State Department documents suggested junta
officials increasingly believed Washington was willing to overlook
their methods to contain political dissent.
In the New York meeting, Kissinger insisted what was happening in
Argentina was not being fully understood by American lawmakers who had
raised concerns about rights issues in the country.
"What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil
war," he told Guzzetti. "We read about human rights problems but not
the context."
At the time, American lawmakers were beginning to raise questions
about the Argentine regime.
"If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better," he said.
"We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. Whatever freedoms you
could restore would help."
Guzzetti assured Kissinger the country's "struggle" against the
leftists would conclude by the end of 1976.
"The terrorist organizations have been dismantled. If this direction
continues, by the end of the year the danger will have been set
aside," Guzzetti was quoted as saying.
The military government remained in power until democracy was restored
in 1983. Following Argentina's dictatorship, many ranking military
officers were tried on charges of abduction, torture and execution of
suspected leftist opponents of the regime. They were imprisoned in
1985 but later pardoned in 1990 by then-President Carlos Menem.
___
On the Net:
Link to National Security Archives: http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/
Unknown
>In article <3fcfd457...@news.mybizz.net>,
> (pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com) wrote:
>
>> General: Israelis Exaggerated Iraq WMD Threat
>> Dec. 4, 2003
>
>
>That's an opinion piece from a left wing, retired intel guy. He's given
>numerous interviews and written plenty of articles about Iraq over the
>last couple of years and this is the first time he's raised this
>concern.
>
>
>These guys are a little more up to speed: >>
Bullshit, more Mossad - Zionist bullshit
David Hartung
<pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3fceadbf...@news.mybizz.net...
I would like to see some of the reasoning behind this, in the past few years
there have been to many instances of shoddy climate research for me to just
accept this man's word, no matter who he is.
Charles C
If we take Global Warming seriously what happens? The environment is
cleaner, and we aren't dependent on foreign oil. That in itself is worth it.
If we're wrong it the extinction of the human species.
Stop this stupid shit: "I don't have to worry about global warming
because I'll be dead before it get too bad".
david....@inkblotpoetry.com
Thrust a sword straight through
his cold heart.
If he survives,
he's the antichrist...
(should make a hell of a pay-per-view event)
(pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com) wrote in message news:<3fcd4671...@news.mybizz.net>...
Unknown
LONDON (Reuters) - British warships during the Falklands War in 1982
carried nuclear depth charges, but the weapons never entered the
territorial waters of any Latin American nation, the ministry of
Defense said on Friday.
"The weapons were type WE177 nuclear depth charges. They were on the
task force when it sailed south but never entered the territorial
waters of the Falkland Islands or any South American country," a
spokesman told Reuters.
"The decision was taken to transfer them to other ships heading back
home," he added, stressing that there had never been any intention of
using the weapons.
He said it was the first time the British government had admitted that
the task force assembled to retake the Falkland Islands after
Argentina invaded and reclaimed the islands it knows as the Malvinas
was equipped with nuclear weapons.
He stressed that it was routine for British naval surface ships to
carry nuclear weapons during the 1980s. The practice was finally ended
in 1993.
The Argentine government issued an angry statement in response,
seeking assurances from Britain that no nuclear weapons had been left
in the Southern Atlantic, in sunken vessels or on the seabed.
"This incident could have had huge consequences for the inhabitants,
natural resources and environment of the region," the statement read.
"It is unacceptable to try and justify it ... during an operation
aimed at preserving a colony in the Southern Atlantic."
The information came to light after a reporter asked for information
about nuclear incidents.
Unknown
Dec. 5, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met Saturday
with senior American commanders and was assured that a recent switch
to more aggressive anti-insurgency tactics has begun to pay off.
Meanwhile, a funeral north of Baghdad for two Iraqis killed in a
firefight with U.S. troops turned violent, with mourners killing a
security officer and chanting pro-Saddam Hussein slogans over his
body.
The funeral in Samarra started after American forces returned the
bodies of the Iraqis killed here last week to their families.
After a somber procession through the town, mourners began firing
weapons in the air - as is customary - and members of the U.S.-led
Iraqi Civil Defense Corps ordered them to stop, witnesses said. The
mourners fired at the paramilitary forces, shooting a civil guard in
the head, and set their truck on fire.
As the rest of the civil defense corps fled, dozens of people jumped
up and down on the burning pickup and near the body, chanting, "Long
live Saddam! Death to the traitors!"
Other mourners buried the two bodies, marking their graves with Iraqi
flags and a scattering of red and yellow roses.
"God is great! Nobody escapes our revenge," mourners chanted at the
cemetery. There were no American forces in sight.
The U.S. military initially claimed to have killed 54 resistance
fighters in running battles last Saturday in Samarra. Iraqi police and
hospital officials dismissed those claims, saying eight bodies were
recovered after the clash and that most of the dead were civilians.
Farther north in the city of Mosul, three gunmen shot and killed an
Iraqi policeman on his way to work Saturday, police said. The victim
was a 24-year-old recent graduate of a police academy that has
received support and guidance from U.S.-led coalition forces.
Corey
"Marie A." <LetEm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:85f06f0c.03120...@posting.google.com...
> "ma...@merde.com" <ma...@merde.com> wrote in message
news:<b2r7svcn8klhg56t8...@4ax.com>...
> > On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:31:24 GMT, "abracadabra" <ab...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >The fact is that if Mexico and France somehow invaded us to toss out
Bush,
> > >all the Democrats and liberals who hate Bush would rise in his defense
> > >against a foreign invasion
> >
> > That is debatable. The Demmies would probably French kiss their
> > Communist allies in France.
>
> You got that right, Mange! There is nothing, absolutely nothing the
> liberals will fight for. About the only scenario I could ever envision
> where the democrats would fight, is if we were invaded by some
> extraterrestials determined to lower taxes, abolish homosexuality,
> eliminate pornography, introduce school vouchers and kill affirmative
> action programs. They they'd all go down like crazed Kamakazee
> fighters.
>
> "Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of our
> money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race." Ann
> Coulter
>
> Cordially, Marie
Corey Says-
No they would never fight. They would simply play dead, until they had the
opportunity to change the world back to evil. end.
Unknown
figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
"We're trying to make sure that there is at least one grave, and
hopefully two or three, for each major period of atrocity," said
Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the occupation authority's human rights
office."
"Nobody expects scientists to dig up and identify 300,000 sets of
remains. So as the scientists analyze the desert, experts are trying
to identify which graves could help prosecutors build a case against
those responsible for their creation.
"Since May we have investigated a mass grave there of 3,115 people. We
identified 2,115 bodies, which were reburied by their families...."
That only leaves 297,000 graves yet to be verified. They say they have
"reports" of many mass graves. Remember the Kosovo mass graves? That
famous satellite photo that supposedly showed rows of mass graves
turned out to be a turnip patch!!
________________________________
The US mass graves expert is Sandra Hodgkinson, who has worked
with the "Iraqi opposition" and the Iraqi National Congress since
1998. General Zinni called the "Iraqi opposition" - "a bunch of
silk-suited Rolex wearing guys sitting around in fancy hotels in
London". Sandra Hodgkinson is one of the few people left who actually
believe what the Iraqi exiles and defectors say.
Read the news article at the bottom, wherein is stated:
"A Defense Intelligence Agency internal review determined that much of
the information Iraqi defectors gave to U.S. officials could not be
substantiated or was otherwise unusable.....
"that they and others now question the credibility of the group's
leader, Ahmad Chalabi, as well as doubt the Iraqi National Congress. "
So far, the total of graves discovered is far less than the number
of documented mass graves in Guatemala, where Reagan-Bush supported
Rios Montt killed more than 100,000 Mayan Indians.
"We have reports of 260 mass graves and we have confirmed
approximately 40 of them," said Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the
Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) mass grave action plan'.
________________________
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/8_26/national_news/24050-1.html
Sandra Hodgkinson, the Coalition Provisional Authority's director of
human rights
Under the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, defense officials provided
some war crimes and crimes against humanity training at the Defense
Institute of International Legal Studies in Newport, R.I., for the
Iraqi opposition. "I was the course coordinator and an instructor for
that program," Hodgkinson said".
In her civilian capacity, Hodgkinson has participated in the State
Department's Future of Iraq Project, and about two years ago, she
spoke at a Human Rights and Transitional Justice seminar arranged by
the Iraqi National Congress in London. In February she began working
with the Defense Department's Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance, deploying first to Kuwait and then to Baghdad
on March 16
___________________________
Iraqi Defector Information Unreliable
Sept. 29, 2003
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Defense Intelligence Agency internal review
determined that much of the information Iraqi defectors gave to U.S.
officials could not be substantiated or was otherwise unusable, the
New York Times reported on Monday, citing federal sources.
Also, some defectors from Iraq that the Iraqi National Congress had
introduced to U.S. intelligence officials gave false information about
their credentials and misled interviewers about how much they knew
about the Iraqi government's weapons program, said the paper.
No more than one-third of the information gained from the defectors
was potentially useful and many leads did not pan out, officials told
the daily.
Some of the intelligence in question includes information on Iraq's
suspected program for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Data
provided about the Iraqi government is also doubted, the officials
informed the Times.
The arrangement between the United States and the exile group, which
was funded by taxpayers, may have wasted more than $1 million,
officials informed the Times, adding that they and others now question
the credibility of the group's leader, Ahmad Chalabi, as well as doubt
the Iraqi National Congress.
___________________________
Reagan - Bush supported the brutal Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt
It was during the same time period that Saddam was killing Shiites.
Rios Montt killed many, many more. The U.S. must arrest him
immediately.
http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/guatemala010619.html
"Quiche is actually one big mass grave," sighs Lya Voltering as we
walk through the hills to the site where she and her forensic team
will soon be conducting exhumations. At a dried up ditch, Lya points
at a bone sticking out of the mud. "They're the remains of a man who
was stopped by the military on his way to the market," she explains.
"They killed him because he failed to produce his identity papers."
Genocide
A National Truth Commission has been set up in Guatemala to
investigate the genocide and other human rights violations in the
country's civil war. It estimates that some 200,000 people were killed
in the 36-year-long conflict. Most of them indigenous Mayans or
peasants suspected of sympathising with the leftwing guerrillas. The
killings were part of the military's "scorched-earth policy", pursued
by the successive dictatorships of Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt. Crops
were destroyed, people were killed indiscriminately and complete
villages were razed to the ground.
Those who fled the atrocities often died of hunger or exhaustion. "In
one of the graves we found the remains of a woman and three children,"
says Lya Voltering, "In the woman's sling we discovered the bones of a
baby. Later, we were told it was the granddaughter she had been
carrying after her daughter died a week before."
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
"pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
>
> Mass graves are in the headlines again. I'll believe the 300,000
> figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
> Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
>
You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
totals in the millions.
John Agosta
"Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
<std...@backpacker.com> wrote in message
news:3FD28683...@backpacker.com...
Show me where the administration's justification for the war - BEFORE we
started the war - was for these
reasons.
You can not.
The fact is, the Administration SOLD the war to the American public based on
"imminent threats,"
UN violations, and the ability to use WMDs against us and our allies, and
visions of mushroom clouds.
There was ZERO discussion on lauching a pre-emptive war against Iraq based
upon the
Human Rights conditions.
I challenge you, or any of the other members of the Bewildered Herd,
to cite ANY message to the American Public that we must prosecute a
pre-emtive war on humanitarian grounds.
Read the damn resolution that congress gave the president to use force to
ensure our SECURITY.
You frickin idiot.
You are being played for a fool, and saying "moooo" the whole time !
Thom
wrote:
snip snip
>
>Just as people flee totalitarian regimes all over the world.
>Incidently, cheer up; the Khmer Rouge were communist, too. One of the
>nice things about those Asian massacres is that relatively few of them
>are caused by Christians.
Quite true, Christians and protestants were too busy elsewhere
committing genocide on the native (north and south) American
populations, not to mention destroying their history and cities.
And of course there's the ever popular Crusades.
THOM
>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> -
>>> "...too many whites are getting away with drug use."
>>> -- Rush Limbaugh, on his short lived TV show
>>> October 5, 1995
>>>
>>> Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
>>> Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
>>> For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
>>> http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
>
>-
>"...too many whites are getting away with drug use."
> -- Rush Limbaugh, on his short lived TV show
> October 5, 1995
>
>Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
>Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
>For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
>http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
Thom
changes nothing, Bush is still a liar and no WOMD, Nukes etc have been
found. Bin Laden is free because Bush cut and run from Afghanistan
just like he cut and run from his duties in Viet Nam.
THOM
Unknown
>> >
>> You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
>> Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
>> THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
>> totals in the millions.
>
The numbers came from "Iraqi oppostion" defectors. Our own
DIA said they can't be trusted or believed.
http://www.hrw.org/worldreport99/mideast/iraq.html
No details were available about the fate of the approximately 16,500
people reported “disappeared” in the last ten years, mainly ethnic
Kurds and Shi’as but including the approximately 600 Kuwaitis reported
to have been in Iraqi custody but unaccounted for since the 1991 Gulf
War.
Iraqi Defector Information Unreliable
Sept. 29, 2003
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Defense Intelligence Agency internal review
determined that much of the information Iraqi defectors gave to U.S.
officials could not be substantiated or was otherwise unusable, the
New York Times reported on Monday, citing federal sources.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 14, 2003
CONTACT: Human Rights Watch
Iraq: U.S. Unresponsive on Mass Graves
BAGHDAD - May 14 - The U.S. government has known since May 3 about the
existence of a mass grave in Hilla but has not taken action to protect
the site, Human Rights Watch charged today.
Human Rights Watch today also confirmed the existence of a secret
burial ground containing the numbered graves of more than 1,000
prisoners executed by the Iraqi government, located about 40
kilometers north of Baghdad in the village of Muhammad Sakran.
The gravesite, located at the edge of a civilian graveyard, contains
the remains of more than one thousand prisoners executed between 1979
and 1999, according to a preliminary investigation conducted by Human
Rights Watch. The bodies of the executed were buried in shallow
individual graves with numbered metal markers.
Unknown
>>> >
>>> You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
>>> Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
>>> THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. >>
>>
"This report, based on the testimony of Iraqi exiles......"
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/hrdossier.pdf
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/focus/
Arbitrary executions also occur as part of "prison cleansing"
campaigns. An estimated 3,000 prisoners have been executed in such
campaigns since 1997.
Following the 1991 insurrection in southern Iraq, an estimated 30,000
to 60,000 Shi'a were killed by regime forces.
Look at the amateurish photo montage, 3 different photos were
crudely combined into one "execution" photo.
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/focus/images/exec440.jpg
Unbelievable!! The 3 photos don't match at all. and yet the montage
is presented as "evidence" in a US State Dept. "report"
____________________________________________
Iraqi Defector Information Unreliable
Sept. 29, 2003
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Defense Intelligence Agency internal review
determined that much of the information Iraqi defectors gave to U.S.
officials could not be substantiated or was otherwise unusable, the
New York Times reported on Monday, citing federal sources.
__________________________________________________
In the 1980s, Saddam launched the "Anfal Campaign" against the
predominantly Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq.
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/focus/
________________________________
Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'
Declassified papers leave the White House hawk exposed over his role
during the Iran-Iraq war
WASHINGTON POST - 12-30-02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52241-2002Dec29.html
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds
"...Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward
Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now
defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a
special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-
Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to
Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost
daily" basis in defiance of international conventions. ..."
"...The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
authorized the sale to Iraq of ... poisonous chemicals and deadly
biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague. ..."
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/21/cst.01.html
CNN Transcript - Interview with Rumsfeld - Sept 21, '02:
MCINTYRE: Well, let me take you back about 20 years ago. The date, I
believe, was December 20th, 1983, you were meeting with Saddam
Hussein. I think we have some video of that, of that meeting. Tell me
what was going on during this meeting.
RUMSFELD: Where did you get this video? From the Iraqi television...
MCINTYRE: You were pressed during the briefings -- during the hearings
this week by Senator Byrd on the question of whether the U.S., in any
way, aided Saddam Hussein in his chemical weapons program. At the
time, during the hearings, you said you had no knowledge of it. Have
you looked into it since then?
RUMSFELD: I had no knowledge. I have no knowledge today.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030410-070214-6557r
The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified
after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the
war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield
intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid
the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA
official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group.
This former official said that he personally had signed off on a
document that shared U.S. satellite intelligence with both Iraq and
Iran in an attempt to produce a military stalemate. "When I signed it,
I thought I was losing my mind," the former official told UPI.
A former CIA official said that Saddam had assigned a top team of
three senior officers from the Estikhbarat, Iraq's military
intelligence, to meet with the Americans.
According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to
Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the
al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days.
Unknown
wrote:
>
>Following the 1991 insurrection in southern Iraq, an estimated 30,000
>to 60,000 Shi'a were killed by regime forces. >>
Prior to occupation, some 1 million Iraqis were employed directly by
the state, about half that number in the armed forces.
Troops of the former army were composed mainly of Shiites, not
Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/goldsborough/20031113-9999_mz1e13golds.html
cornytheclown
Yes, the mass graves or mass murder and atrocities committed by saddam
were never of any concern of the Bush admin when formulating reasons
for invading Iraq. A the very end before the invasion he did start
troting out the "freedom of Iraqis" bullshit but I think everyone
knows this was just some last minute bullshit as he never menioned the
freedom of the Iraqis during the whle blix/UN debates in the press.
The US has a historical record of backing some of the meanest
genocidal maniacs in recent history........Guatemala, Chile, El
Salvadore, Argentina.....and the list goes on. The deaths of inncent
men women and children, even on a massive scale has never been of any
concern to he US administration or the US citizens for that matter.
Yes, Saddam and his cronies were murderous monsters, but why should
that be of any concern to the USA ??? We have let it go on in so many
places around the globe when the people doing the wholesale slaughter
were "US friendly"...supplying training, weapons and logistical
support in some cases.
Saddam and his government have been mass murdering people for thirty
years, where was our outrage during those thirty years ??? We
supported that bastard while he was mass murdering his own citizens,
why are we so concerned now ???
Harry Grogan
> <std...@backpacker.com> wrote in message
> news:3FD28683...@backpacker.com...
> >
> >
> > "pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
> > >
> > > Mass graves are in the headlines again. I'll believe the 300,000
> > > figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
> > > Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
> > >
> > You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
> > Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
> > THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
> > totals in the millions.
>
>
> Show me where the administration's justification for the war - BEFORE we
> started the war - was for these
> reasons.
>
> You can not.
>
Show us where Bubba Clinton was justified invading Somalia,Haiti and Bosnia.
Harry Grogan
Why are we still in Bosnia?Bubba PROMISED to have the troops home by
Christmas (of course he did'nt say what decade,slick!).
SemiScholar
Grogan) wrote:
>"John Agosta" <j_ag...@wideopenwest.kom> wrote in message news:<yqGdnfSOA43...@wideopenwest.com>...
>> "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
>> <std...@backpacker.com> wrote in message
>> news:3FD28683...@backpacker.com...
>> >
>> >
>> > "pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Mass graves are in the headlines again. I'll believe the 300,000
>> > > figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
>> > > Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
>> > >
>> > You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
>> > Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
>> > THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
>> > totals in the millions.
>>
>>
>> Show me where the administration's justification for the war - BEFORE we
>> started the war - was for these
>> reasons.
>>
>> You can not.
>>
>
> Show us where Bubba Clinton was justified invading Somalia,
He didn't invade Somalia. George Bush Sr. did.
>Haiti
Clinton didn't invade Haiti. He threatened to, and the rebels backed
down and let the US troops come ashore peacefully. Haitian refugees
were causing a real problem for the US.
>and Bosnia.
Clinton didn't invade Bosnia. He sent peacekeeping troops as a part
of a UN effort after the cessation of hostilities.
And not a single US soldier was lost in Haiti or Bosnia.
SemiScholar
Grogan) wrote:
Well, you tell us. WHy hasn't George W Bush withdrawn the troops from
Bosnia for tha past three years?
Unknown
"They arrived in boxes marked 'Made in Iraq' and looked like something
you fired with a rocket-propelled grenade," Col al-Dabbagh told The
Sunday Telegraph.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=470910
Iraqi colonel: I am WMD claim source
By Andrew Clennell
07 December 2003
An Iraqi colonel said yesterday that he was the source of the
Government's "dodgy dossier" claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of
mass destruction within 45 minutes.
Lieutenant-Colonel al-Dabbagh, who said he was the head of an Iraqi
air defence unit in the desert, outed himself. But he explained that
the weapons he was talking about were battlefield weapons to be fired
from rocket-propelled grenades, and were not for use in missiles.
"They arrived in boxes marked 'Made in Iraq' and looked like something
you fired with a rocket-propelled grenade," Col al-Dabbagh told The
Sunday Telegraph.
"They were either chemical or biological weapons; I don't know which,
because only the Fedayeen and the Special Republican Guard were
allowed to use them. All I know is we were told that when we used
these weapons we had to wear gas masks."
_____________________________________________
He said "only Fedayeen and the Special Republican Guard were allowed
to use them", then in the next sentence said "we were told that when
we used these weapons..."
Why aren't "Saddam loyalists" and Fedayeen using those weapons now?
They need better disinfo writers. Only the dumbest freepers and
dittoheads believe prepotersous, hastily concocted stories told
by anonymous sources.
But then again, the target audience of the bullshit is stupid Bush
supporters.
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
"pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
>
>
> >> >
> >> You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
> >> Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
> >> THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
> >> totals in the millions.
> >
>
> The numbers came from "Iraqi oppostion" defectors. Our own
> DIA said they can't be trusted or believed.
>
Liar.
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
animaux wrote:
>
> >> "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
> >> <std...@backpacker.com> wrote in message
> >> news:3FD28683...@backpacker.com...
> >> >
> >> > "pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > Mass graves are in the headlines again. I'll believe the 300,000
> >> > > figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
> >> > > Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
> >> > >
> >> > You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
> >> > Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
> >> > THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
> >> > totals in the millions.
>
> In the 1980's.
> While Saddam had the full support of the US Government, led by repub hero Ronad Reagan.
>
You are a liar.
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
You are a liar and a kook.
Play Jurist
<noe...@spambegone.com> wrote:
> And not a single US soldier was lost in Haiti or Bosnia.
If you risk nothing, you lose nothing. Except perhaps respect.
Thom
Liar? No I try and do everything in life opposite to Bush and the
Republicans.
By the way I see your icon of free enterprise is working in
Afghanistan and the poppy crop to make heroin is coming nicely. Oh
and I see Bin Laden is in chains ...what's that? Oh he'se not in
chains and Bush failed? And we're now in Iraq?
If I'm a kook, just answer me a few things...
WOMD.....still waiting
Nukes.....still waiting
Gas shells ready in 45 minutes.....still waiting
Bin laden in chains.....still waiting
Saddam in chains.....still waiting
Bush telling the truth about his military records.....still waiting
Bush serving in Viet Nam.....still waiting
Bush brothers doing any military service.....still waiting
Any Bush, Rummy, Powell, Cheney or Wolfowitz kids serving in
Iraq.....still waiting
THOM
Thom
Grogan) wrote:
ask George Bush, he'se the one in charge now. Bosnia is now happening
on his watch and its now his responsibility.
THOM
Thom
Grogan) wrote:
>"John Agosta" <j_ag...@wideopenwest.kom> wrote in message news:<yqGdnfSOA43...@wideopenwest.com>...
>> "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
>> <std...@backpacker.com> wrote in message
>> news:3FD28683...@backpacker.com...
>> >
>> >
>> > "pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Mass graves are in the headlines again. I'll believe the 300,000
>> > > figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
>> > > Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
>> > >
>> > You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
>> > Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
>> > THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
>> > totals in the millions.
>>
>>
>> Show me where the administration's justification for the war - BEFORE we
>> started the war - was for these
>> reasons.
>>
>> You can not.
>>
>
> Show us where Bubba Clinton was justified invading Somalia,Haiti and Bosnia.
show us where CLINTON is relivant in alt.politics.bush?
THOM
Thom
Funny how the Bushies always talk about how terrible it is in
socialist Cuba but never want to talk about the appauling poverty in
the capitalist islands surrounding Cuba?
THOM
hank
> "They arrived in boxes marked 'Made in Iraq' and looked like something
> you fired with a rocket-propelled grenade," Col al-Dabbagh told The
> Sunday Telegraph.
>
>
>
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=470910
>
> Iraqi colonel: I am WMD claim source
> By Andrew Clennell
> 07 December 2003
>
>
> An Iraqi colonel said yesterday that he was the source of the
> Government's "dodgy dossier" claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of
> mass destruction within 45 minutes.
>
.........................................
We dont need no stinkin WMD.........
We dont need no proof....
We had to start somewhere,,,it was Iraq...
to show the middleast it dont pay to mess with America.
Its called WAR.....
We didnt start it...the mulsims did.
and when they are all dead..we will have peace.
peace
love
hank
Unknown
Join the new Paleontology_and_Climate group, with
information and public discussion for everyone.
Public archives - open membership - view photo images!
No moderation, honest, non abusive non political messages.
Introductory but with many links to studies and data on
paleontology, climate, and global warming.
Join at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleontology_and_Climate
Anyone with an interest in climate and paleontology is most
welcome to join.
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
Thom wrote:
>
> On 7 Dec 2003 06:58:51 -0800, maynardgk...@hotmail.com (Harry
> Grogan) wrote:
>
> >"John Agosta" <j_ag...@wideopenwest.kom> wrote in message news:<yqGdnfSOA43...@wideopenwest.com>...
> >> "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )"
> >> <std...@backpacker.com> wrote in message
> >> news:3FD28683...@backpacker.com...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > "pope_about_town at Xyahoo.com" wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > Mass graves are in the headlines again. I'll believe the 300,000
> >> > > figure when it has been verified. So far they found 3,000 bodies.
> >> > > Guatemala has many more than that buried in mass graves.
> >> > >
> >> > You are insane. International human rights organizations say that
> >> > Saddam's secret police kidnapped, tortured and murdered HUNDREDS OF
> >> > THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. This is how he kept power. The cost in human life
> >> > totals in the millions.
> >>
> >>
> >> Show me where the administration's justification for the war - BEFORE we
> >> started the war - was for these
> >> reasons.
> >>
> >> You can not.
> >>
> >
> > Show us where Bubba Clinton was justified invading Somalia,Haiti and Bosnia.
>
> show us where CLINTON is relivant in alt.politics.bush?
>
One should compare the previous president's actions to the current
president and his actions. That is the relevancy.
SemiScholar
They were risked. Still are at risk - there was just a long article
in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune about our troops there. And they
have lots of respect - from the Bosnians and from the rest of the
world.
Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )
You do realize that Bush didn't claim that Saddam had nuclear weapons.
> Gas shells ready in 45 minutes.....still waiting
> Bin laden in chains.....still waiting
> Saddam in chains.....still waiting
> Bush telling the truth about his military records.....still waiting
> Bush serving in Viet Nam.....still waiting
> Bush brothers doing any military service.....still waiting
> Any Bush, Rummy, Powell, Cheney or Wolfowitz kids serving in
> Iraq.....still waiting
>
Yawn.
Don W. McCollough
Harry Grogan
As expected Bubba gets a pass!!